Alan Watkins: BBC's boasts on European Cup are baseless

The coming weekend is the most important so far in the Heineken European Cup. Only eight teams are left, and the competition is at its knock-out stage. On Friday Llanelli play Perpignan; on Saturday Toulouse play Northampton and Leinster play Biarritz; while on Sunday Leicester play Munster.

It is a sell-out at Welford Road. At Lansdowne Road over 40,000 tickets have been sold for the Leinster-Biarritz game. Stradey Park, Llanelli, and the Stadium de Toulouse will like wise see full houses.

And what will the fans sitting at home in front of their television sets see? Precious little is, I am afraid, the answer. Llanelli Perpignan is on British Eurosport and, presumably, on some Welsh channel as well, which is difficult to obtain if you live in some other part of the UK. Toulouse-Northampton is also on Eurosport. Leinster-Biarritz is not on any UK mainland channel at all, though it might be obtainable by pressing a sufficient number of the right buttons on a digital system. And Leicester-Munster is on BBC1.

Accordingly, of four matches of equal importance and equal interest to all serious rugby followers, only one is being shown to those who have not chosen to invest in a box on top of their television sets. No doubt, there will be a round-up on the BBC on Sunday afternoon, but that is not at all the same as watching the match live. Watching highlights instead is always unsatisfactory, like trying to make a meal out of chocolate biscuits.

The Corporation's neglect of these crucial three days would be less offensive if it had not made such a song and dance of its dedication to rugby football when it re-secured the rights to England matches at Twickenham and in Paris from Sky Television, so resuming its old position of monopoly provider of the Six Nations' Championship. But even before this reversion to a former state of affairs, the BBC was boasting about its dedication to the game, citing in particular its promised coverage of the Heineken European Cup. "Commitment'' was the ad man's word that was used on this occasion.

There is nothing wrong with boasting, as such. As Lord Beaverbrook used to say, if you don't blow your own trumpet, no one else is going to blow it for you. It is when the boasts turn out to be baseless, when promises bear no relation to performance that we are entitled to draw matters to the attention of the Serious Fraud Office.

I do not know what is the basis of the deal – for I assume there is a deal – between the BBC and British Eurosport. While it was on the BBC that I first heard Colomiers described as a suburb of Paris (it is, of course, a suburb of Toulouse), British Eurosport can be equally if not more cavalier with the details of French geography.

Quite recently, for instance, the commentator on this commercial channel claimed that Bourgoin was "in the heart of French rugby country'', whereas in fact it is half-way between Lyon and the Swiss border. The heart of French rugby country is, I suppose, somewhere between Toulouse and Agen.

It is a channel that appears to be funded on less than lavish lines. Whenever I switch it on by chance it is showing some sport in which I am uninterested, whether ice hockey or skiing downhill at a great pace. It has, however, resuscitated some players from that darkest of dark ages, the day before yesterday – Martin Bayfield, Gwyn Jones, David Sole – whose comments are always worth listening to.

I have nothing against the channel. Indeed, in these slick times, it has a certain eccentric charm. The objection to it is that hardly any rugby followers have the means of receiving it.

Last week, among other things, I picked a Lion XV and claimed that rugby union was now more taxing physically than rugby league. These thoughts have aroused quite different responses among my correspondents, for and against.

The letters that were against were all from league supporters. How dare I suggest that union was harder than league! Just look at the respective tackle-counts in both codes – a point made in a reader's letter in these pages last week. Though I do not want to treat players of either code as rats, rabbits or guinea pigs, I can only suggest that some clever chaps conduct a few tests.

The letters that were for came from union supporters. They were about my Lions selection. I was challenged on only one choice – of Bryan Redpath over Matt Dawson at scrum-half. The makeshift front row of Tom Smith, Steve Thompson and Jason Leonard (inevitably so, following the season's injuries to first-choice players) completely escaped censure. Even the selection of Martyn Williams at No 7 was applauded, whereas I thought it would be denounced as evidence of pro-Welsh bias when performers such as Neil Back, Keith Gleeson and Richard Hill were around. Not so. It only goes to show that you never can tell.