Oh, for a one-stop TV shop for the lot

HERE’S a brain teaser: if you happen to be an average Joe or Joanna struggling to make your sums add up in the blood-andguts real world, as opposed to the gold-plated one inhabited by tech gazillionaires and Saudi princes and Twickenham chief executives, and you love watching rugby union, your favourite sport, on the telly box in the corner of your living room, how much expenditure is too much?

- CHRIS HEWETT

The answer? There isn’t one, because we all have our own breaking points, some of them purely financial, others rooted in principle. But that doesn’t invalidate the question. As this season’s Champions Cup begins to unfold under the small-screen sovereignty of Premier Sports, the latest in a long line of subscription-based broadcasters chasing the dollar in an already saturated market, we are fast approaching the moment where the 15-man code in this part of the world should take a very long, very hard look at its offering.

According to friends in Australia, it is possible to access, on a single channel, coverage of the whole of southern hemisphere rugby, together with all major international tournaments, the English Premiership and the Top League in Japan, for the sterling equivalent of £14 a month. By way of rubbing it in, they confirm that it’s an ad-free deal into the bargain. Top-end rugby, no bloody meerkats! God damn them, the lucky buggers.