Pumas maul Lions as S4C and TG4 deliver first-ever joint host in Dublin
Kieran Hartigan, Iris Productions, executive producer
S4C and TG4 joined forces to provide free-to-air coverage of the British & Irish Lions’ first-ever fixture in Ireland and the first sports co-production between the two public service broadcasters. The opening match of the 2025 series took place at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium on Friday 20 June where the Lions were defeated 24-28 by World Cup semi-finalists Argentina.
Production was provided by the team behind Rugbaí Beo from Iris Productions, in tandem with Whisper / Lions Productions, alongside broadcast facilities from NEP Ireland. Following Friday’s Dublin clash, the Lions depart for Australia for the nine-game tour, including three Test matches against the Wallabies.
Sky Sports is the UK and Ireland rights holder for the Lions Series, and Friday night’s historic 1888 Cup match served as a curtain-raiser for the upcoming tour. Sky deployed a seven-camera add-on presentation unilateral remote production from the Aviva Stadium, working with Irish facilities provider TVM.
“We’ve always had a good relationship with TG4; we’re very similar in lots of ways, obviously including being minority language,” S4C head of sport Sue Butler tells SVG Europe. “We’ve worked together for many years on sports like Tour de France and URC rugby, but we’ve never actually done a joint production. So it’s great that something of this magnitude is the first one.
“Sky was always the main rights holder, but there was an opportunity here for a free-to-air production. I hate the word ‘synergy’ but that’s really what it is, with two minority language broadcasters doing the British & Irish Lions opening match before they go to Australia. It felt like a good opportunity, a good fit.”
“Kieran Hartigan from Iris has been great all the way through, he’s a big part of making this happen. We’ve known his team for years through working together on the URC. And TG4 head of sport Rónán Ó Coisdealbha and I spend quite a bit of time working together over the sporting calendar,” she adds.
“We broadcast in English and Welsh; we do English on the red button. We’re taking the world feed commentary to provide our English language service, so it’s an extra feed. That means S4C will have a Welsh language feed and an English commentary feed – and that English feed will be book-ended by the S4C programme before and after the game. That’s another thing that has to happen on the truck.”
Last October Butler and Ó Coisdealbha attended Sportel in Monaco and learned of a possible opportunity to broadcast the Lions match for free-to-air through Pitch International. “The Lions were looking for a broadcaster to put together an OB unit and facilities for host broadcast obligations – with production crew, technical crew and fibre connection to BT Tower,” Ó Coisdealbha explains.
“There’s a lot of feeds, with TG4, S4C, clean international feed, and then the world feed which Pitch International sends to broadcast takers around the world.” These included Stan Sport in Australia, who will be host broadcaster for the Lions vs Wallabies Test Series.
“Kieran puts blood, sweat and tears into every production, and you can see that on the screen. The effort that goes into getting interviews, pre- and post-match analysis and half-time, drones, cameras, directing, running orders – everything is just down to a tee. We’re very lucky to have a producer like Kieran who has such a deep interest in rugby and who does a great job on every production for us.
“We’re delighted and proud for TG4 and S4C to get the opportunity to co-produce a match of this size, and that we’re able to showcase a Lions match happening in Dublin. We had the URC final in Croke Park last weekend, which was obviously a big game with really good viewing figures. But to have two big rugby matches on TG4 within the space of seven days is great. Never in a million years did I think TG4 would be broadcasting a live Lions match – it’s huge.”
Bigger than the Six Nations
Hartigan adds: “We’ve had numerous meetings in respect of this production, with a huge amount of planning involved. Sky indicated some months ago that they were going to be on-site with a significant add-on presence, and that they were going to produce remotely.
“From an Irish perspective I would say we are extremely honoured to be the production company managing the world feed production to takers all around the globe, and separately on-site we have productions for both TG4 and S4C through Iris and working with our colleagues from Whisper / Lions Productions in respect of the S4C production.”
“Never in a million years did I think TG4 would be broadcasting a live Lions match – it’s huge”
“Tom Kearns, who works with Iris and is a native Welsh speaker, is directing for S4C and Siôn Jones from Whisper / Lions Productions is producing, with Sinead Murphy directing and Kara Kelly producing for TG4. Gruff Davies is directing the world feed coverage.
“There has been excellent cooperation with Sky, who are managing their own production, and there will be some in-game camera sharing as well. World feed will be dedicating cameras to both S4C and TG4 for use in their build-up too.”
He continues: “We have a world feed graphics package with two slaved Viz engines from AE Live here. As we fire world feed graphics in English, two slaved machines will simultaneously fire Irish language and Welsh language to the TG4 and S4C trucks. And then there are Viz Trios on each of the TG4 and S4C trucks driving pres graphics as well. It has been a phenomenal effort by AE Live in the last number of weeks to get that turned around for us.”
In terms of numbers, a total of 30 cameras were deployed across the three productions, with 81 crew, 31 production staff and 16 talent involved. “It feels like a bigger event, somehow, than a Six Nations game, with all the activity here including also ESPN Sud América for Argentina and then the in-bowl show for Lions Productions as well.”
Complicated compound… in a good way
NEP Ireland supplied facilities and a host feed truck for Iris, plus unilateral trucks for S4C and TG4. “For the host it’s 22 cameras, so a very good spec and certainly in line with an international match of this standard. It’s not technically a Test match but it’s being treated very much like a Test by the team here,” says NEP Ireland senior technical manager Adam Scarff.
Adam Scarff, NEP Ireland, senior technical manager
“We have four RF cameras including the cine-style shallow depth of field, the usual four box TMO cameras, and high behind. We’ve got two three-camera pres add-ons for S4C and TG4. Pre- and post-match they’re going to use some of the world feed cameras for their own coverage of warm-ups so they didn’t need to put much more on top of their studio and interview cameras.
“As well as that ESPN Sud are on-site and they have booked commentary facilities with three people here. So with Sky Sports we have four broadcasters on-site, as well as the world feed English language commentary.”
“One enjoyable complication on this job is that, because S4C and TG4 are Welsh and Irish language broadcasters, we have English, Welsh and Irish language graphics,” he continues. “Sky are allowing us to use their graphics package, unbranded of Sky, which means their look will match up.
“They’ve supplied their match wipe, replay wipes, home and away and TMO wipes. We’re running them in time so that the Sky feed has a Sky wipe on it, then adding their own graphics back in Osterley, so that the look from this game will line up with the Tour matches.
“So English world feed, Irish world feed that will go to TG4 and they’ll put their show around it, same for S4C, and then the Sky feed, which has no graphics on it but has the Sky replay moves. ESPN Sud will take English-language graphics.
“AE Live are here, with three simultaneously running Vizrt graphics engines. And then Broadcast Virtual pitch paint is being added upstream so it’s being painted into cameras 1 and 2 and we’re cutting them into our vision mixing desk. So it’s quite complicated – in a good way!
“And we have the television match official (TMO) and fair play review officer (FPRO) in the bunker review truck, very similar to Six Nations, with ten-minute yellow cards going to the bunker and they decide whether it needs to be upgraded to red. There is also a Lions Productions big-screen show happening inside the stadium, and we’re supplying a truck to produce that feed.”