Women’s Six Nations snub not Beeb’s fault

THERE has been some disquiet over the BBC decision to show the first two games of the Women’s Six Nations on iPlayer, rather than a mainstream channel. Not least because England’s matches against Scotland and Italy were bumped to show the 1978 film Death on the Nile, and a sixth repeat of an episode of Flog It! from 2014. Yet do you know what happens at the end of Death on the Nile? No? Well, that’s one advantage over the match between England and Scotland, which concluded with a thoroughly predictable 52-10 scoreline. The same with Flog It! — never watched it, so at least there is some capacity for surprise. unlike Italy 3 England 67, in which the victors did not even have to play particularly well. It is a pity, but the Women’s Six Nations is a series of mismatches until professional England meet semi-professional France. The other teams are amateur and the gulf is too obvious. and yes, when England’s footballers play San Marino, it gets a terrestrial platform. Yet the England players are household names and the game is part of a more competitive qualification process. If England played the equivalent of San Marino in every round, that special status would soon be lost. Wales shipped 98 points in two games. By contrast, England’s women qualified with a points difference of 106. They have already made the final where they will play, in all likelihood, France. and that fixture will rightly be shown on BBC Two, because it is a genuine contest with a quality the other games do not possess. Sport does not get its place on your TV screen because it is on; it is shown because it is good. Rather than upbraiding the BBC, upgrading the Six Nations is where the answer to this slight lies.