There I was, sitting down watching the end of the thrilling Broncos/St George game on Nine yesterday afternoon, and Ray Warren started talking about an injury to Andrew Johns. Then Peter Sterling, one of the other commentators smentioned that Manly had beaten Canberra, after which Warren revealed that Auckland Warriors had come from behind to beat the Knights after Johns was injured.

Up to the last week or so, it had been a rule at Nine that the commentators were not to give the scores in the other games. In the past Nine’s telecast used to have a wrap at the end sometimes, but that’s been absent this year and after the game Nine quite often goes straight to the news to try and stop viewers switching channels.

The absence of other results was also to encourage viewers to stay with Nine and get the results from the 6 pm news. It also had the effect of keeping the results a secret from those who’d watched the Nine game and were planning to switch to Foxtel for the replay of other games. So why the little update? Was it because of the importance of the Johns’ injury, or is a small but conscious decision to “ruin” the replays for Foxtel subscribers?