Sunday, February 05, 2006

Superbowl is on ITV

Brilliant, the Superbowl is on ITV tonight, free to air. I thought it was on Sky Sports. The only problem is its on so bloody late. Still, I can watch the first half anyway.

Hmmm, who should I cheer for? Pittsburgh Steelers or Seattle Seahawks. Who are the underdogs? Google tells me its the Seahawks. That'll do, Come on Hawks. :-)

Update: 1st Quater is just over. Seahawks lead 3-0 and were damn close to getting a couple of touchdowns. They are dominant at the moment but they need to get some scores. The Americans sure know how to film sports, even if they insist on stopping every 5 seconds. There seems to be a camera covering every possible view. Plus the boom cameras (I presume they are boom mounted) that go in over the pitch and show an over the head view of the players while getting set for plays are great. They wouldn't work well in soccer, but they might work in rugby? The ITV feed does seem a little flaky as ABC presenters appear with no sound and other commentators appear with no lights.

Update 2: 1st half is over, Steelers lead 7-3. Steelers did better this quarter, but they seemed to be riding their luck a little. They got a touchdown, created by a cross field pass that brought them to within 5 yards of the goal but which would have been intercepted by the defender if he hadn't stumbled slightly. Then on the 3rd and Goal a defender literally threw himself under the diving ball carrier and seemed to push the ball back to almost prevent the touchdown but the video ref gave it. The Seahawks then seemed a little stunned and uncertain wasting alot of time. Two out of bounds and a missed field goal then finished the half for them. 30 out of the last 37 teams leading at half time have won the Superbowl.

It is now 1 a.m. in Ireland, if only American football didn't take 4 hours for a 60 minute game. The Rolling Stones are on stage now and I think I'm off to bed.

Update 3: I ended up staying up til 3 a.m. to watch the rest of the game. It wasn't great. Steelers won 21-10, but I didn't think their performance was that good, really the Seahawks should have been alot close but didn't seem to be able to figure out what to do. With 10 minutes to go the Seahawks seemed stumped when they had the ball. Their quarterback Hasselbeck threw the ball into empty space several times. I don't know if the receiver was messing up and not being where he was supposed to be or if Hasselbeck was making the mistakes, but they never looked likely to score. In fact their best chance to score seemed to come from a 70 yard dash by one of their defense. In the end the Steelers were celebrating with 5 minutes to go and there was no tension, they wanted the win more than Seahawks and in the end they deserved it more than the Seahawks.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Go Steelers!

And as for the ITV coverage.. Bah! Stolen, after Channel 5 had kept the flame lit for years.