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China secures TV deal to broadcast Premiership Rugby
By Online Editors
The English Premiership is about to become the first professional club rugby tournament broadcast in China - to a national audience in the millions on free-to-air Chinese broadcaster CCTV5+, reports The Telegraph.
The historic four-year deal will see 25 Premiership matches broadcasted per season, plus the semifinal and final live, with Beijing Elite Rugby producing Mandarin commentary and a weekly highlights show.
"This is a very significant day in the history of Premiership Rugby," Dominic Hayes, commercial director at Premiership Rugby, said.
"Launching on free-to-air TV in China is part of our strategic goal of increasing the global impact of Premiership Rugby and helping to grow the game in new countries around the world.
"CCTV5+ reaches 400 million households and this will lead to a huge increase in rugby's exposure, in a new and very exciting market."
The deal is a massive coup for Premiership Rugby, and a step towards growing the game in the biggest market in Asia.
The first game to be broadcast live will be the Christmas Eve clash featuring Leicester Tigers and Saracens.
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Smith is playing a different game with the rest of the backs struggling to understand. That's the problem with so called playmakers, if nobody gets what they're doing then it often just leads to a turnover. It gets worse when Borthwick changes one of them, which is why they don't score points at the end. Sometimes having a brilliant playmaker can be problematic if a team cannot be built around them. Once again Borthwick seems lacking in either coaching or selection. I can't help but think it's the latter coupled with pressure to select the big name players.
Lastly, his forward replacements are poor and exposed either lack of depth or selection pressure. Cole hemorrhages scrum penalties whenever he comes on, opponents take advantage of the England scrum and close out the game. Is that the best England can offer?
Go to commentsWhich Australian coaches would be acceptable to coach the All Blacks ?
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