The World Rugby-owned RugbyPass TV platform has been written off as a “shambles” by disgruntled fans who couldn’t log on to watch live coverage of Saturday’s England XV v France XV international from Allianz Twickenham.
RugbyPass TV stepped in last year when none of the established TV channels bought the UK rights to England’s tour match away to Japan. The quality of the service they provide has been regularly criticised, but its reputation was shredded by this weekend’s latest damaging gaffe.
Having heavily promoted the match in the build-up, RugbyPass TV couldn’t cope with the number of viewers looking to watch Steve Borthwick’s team in action.
Saturday’s match – which France won 26-24 with two late tries – was nearly over by the time a grovelling apology was posted to the RugbyPass X social media site, but such was the level of vitriol this message received the post was soon deleted.
An earlier – and still visible – RugbyPass post advertising that the match was scheduled to the streamed via their app also received an online hammering from people fed up with the much-criticised streaming platform. Here is example of the negative commentary that was posted:
Except I can’t watch it because your platform has collapsed.
— David Parsley (@DavidParsley50) June 21, 2025
@howes_the: “Sort this out, RugbyPass. You can’t consider yourself a serious rugby media outlet if no one can log on to watch the games you’ve secured the rights to. Absolute amateur hour.”
Alan Moratelli: “What a joke your sign-up and application is… None of the tech works. The most inadequate signup process I’ve experienced, and nothing works on a TV, iPhone, your app or even the PC. Doing rugby proud!”
@mentasmuk: “Pathetic service. RFU keeps bleating on about growing the game, then gives the rights to a cowboy outfit like this. Can’t even handle the requests.”
Richard Barber: “Absolute joke, RugbyPass. Inconvenience of it only being streamable from laptops/mobile devices is enough but not being to watch the England game at all is pathetic. No wonder we can’t grow the game.”
@Chads201: “Any chance you could increase your app throttle to let me log in and watch the rugby?? This is so poor!! RFU, great, great choice in platforms… NOT!!!”
Steve Nixon: “It’s rubbish! I just get an error saying too many requests try later. Guess I will be watching cricket instead then.”
Michael J Chapman: “Complete embarrassment by RugbyPass/England Rugby. Can’t log in to watch the game. Pathetic.”
Matt Selwyn: “Absolute bollox of a company. England Rugby choosing chaff for their sponsors, not their fans.”
@Robyreu754: “Can I suggest you hire a platform engineer? A little bit late now… but as I see, you’ve got exclusive rights to the game and your platform can’t deal with the load.”
James Ackroyd: “Sort it out, RugbyPass. Lots of people unable to log in to watch this match in the one place it’s being shown. Ridiculous.”
Jess March: “What a load of rubbish. Been looking forward to watching this match and your website has crashed. Shambles.”
@leebetts18: “What an absolute shambles. Completely useless website, Very, very, very poor, RugbyPass TV.”
Thomas Kerrigan: “Terrible website, can’t handle the traffic. Nobody can log in to watch. Get in the bin.”
Ben Hughes: “You can stream anything. RugbyPass is a joke and England Rugby are just as bad. Grow the game? Give me a break.”
Chris Pratt: “Trying to watch my national team. Absolute shambles. RFU should be ashamed. The game gets further and further away from easy viewing.”
@steveearle7: “Absolutely rubbish. Come on RFU, get this sort of stuff on a proper free channel.”
Rob Sullivan: “Not the best decision to give the game to shambles of a website.”
James Firth: “You can’t watch it because your app and website can’t deal with the traffic. Embarrassing.”
@rugbycoachrob: “Was kind of pathetic to be the only broadcaster and then not have enough bandwidth. No game plan at all, boys!”
Chris Turpin: “Having a laugh. System has crashed. Well done England Rugby for partnering with clowns, but wouldn’t expect anything else. Disgrace. Couldn’t organise a party in a brewery!”
@tallyt99: “Why advertise it if you can’t cope with the volume wanting to watch?”
@iHubbbb: “Any plans to fix your website before the second half?”
John Warner: “Absolute shambles. How can you run a service like this, and the basics don’t work? Embarrassing.”
@InfiniteFreques: “It crashes. Too little resourcing?”
Deam Mason: “Why would you use a service that can’t deal with the amount of people wanting to watch it?”
David Vickers: “What is the point in you showing this? None of your technology works. What a shambles once again.”
@Griff0Zero: “Was watching and got kicked out and can’t get back in. Try was just scored. Lovely way to spend an afternoon.”
A ridiculous choice of showing the match in the first place #sportforall #not
— Susanne Garrod (@MortgageSusanne) June 21, 2025
Reacting to the commotion online with people unable to watch the action, @EnglandRugby posted on their X account: “Apologies to anyone having difficulties watching live on RugbyPass TV, you can now watch England XV v France XV on England Rugby YouTube.”
Susanne Garrod: “A ridiculous choice of showing the match in the first place.”
@LawrenceHuggler: “Well done. Good, quick solution.”
@Takethe3: “Finally, some acknowledgment from someone… RugbyPass on their lunch break?”
@cazzam8: “Thanks for sorting it out as I’m still stuck on reset password screen. RugbyPass TV is an absolute shambles.”
@Andrewpow101: “Never use RugbyPass again.”
Chris Beddow: “And that [YouTube] is where it and the rest of the summer games should be. Get rid of RugbyPass!”
Nicholas Wright: “Missed the first 39 minutes trying to log on.”
@clueclucks: “The quality on YouTube is terrible for some reason. Pixels, blurred and jumpy.”
@RugbyEng: “Why is it not available on RugbyPass? Missed all the build-up and the first 15 minutes. This whole fixture has been a giant mess: why isn’t it a full-capped Test? Why isn’t it on a regular channel? Watching it on low-res YouTube is a poor fan experience. Answers Sweeney?”
Steven Dickens: “The sooner you and the Premiership do a global deal with Netflix or Prime the better.”
Over on the World Rugby X account, there were more negative comments from disgruntled fans:
@oldtwohats: “What’s the point? Your crap website won’t even let existing members log in. You haven’t got the capacity to handle it. Why is it everything you lot are involved in turn to s***?”
Duncan Herring: “Not able to watch as your infrastructure isn’t up to the job… Keep getting ‘too many requests’ error.”
@1008amb: “After a really tough time logging in we managed to get the stream going, watched the first 10 minutes and RugbyPass logged us out saying too many requests. We were mid-watching!? Put it on TV or another site if it can’t even keep people on it once the game is on!?”