Duncan Garner: Spark suffers reputation damage after disrupted coverage

OPINION: On Saturday evening, I drove to my mate Willy's house to watch the rugby.

Willy has a new, flash, smart TV, which he dropped $2k on.

We walked in and I saw the big new TV with its picture frozen. It came back, but happened again, and again and again. Willy was far from impressed.

"Not good enough. Useless."

The words were flying around the room.

It was a disrupted test match due to the service - or lack of it.

Frustrating more than anything, especially in such a tight clash.

Spark has done itself a major disservice and reputational damage, but here's the key - it's recoverable.

It's a long tournament, and Spark's put up its hands and taken the hit.

Spark has offered it free and has offered refunds, which is a good approach. There were 405,000 streams at 9pm on Saturday - the most ever in New Zealand.

That wasn't the issue though - it was how the feed came into New Zealand.

So Spark has work to do, but thank goodness for the result on the field.

Imagine the angst if we'd lost as well.

Spark's got something in common with the Boks - they're still alive, despite a painful loss first up.

Duncan Garner is host of The AM Show.