Rugby: Sunspot of trouble for Scots opener

SCOTTISH rugby fans are being warned today that television coverage of the opening World Cup match against Romania in Invercargill on September 10 is set to be disrupted by a natural phenomenon related to the position of the sun.

All channels broadcasting 'live' will have a complete loss of their broadcast signal due to sun and satellite positioning, the New Zealand Herald is reporting.

Called "sun outage", this phenomenon occurs in April and September when day and night are of equal length and the satellite passes directly between the antenna on earth and the sun.

Disruptions lasting a quarter of an hour are expected to occur each day during a period of a fortnight.

Scientists predict peak outage will be on September 8 - 24 hours before Scotland and Romania get their campaigns underway with a 1pm local kick-off time.

The World Cup is due to be shown on STV but all five broadcasters share the same satellite - Optus D1.