There's also the small matter of Bosnia v Wales on Saturday night.
Yes, this is exactly right, the Wales football team are playing on Saturday at 7.45 and that should be a massive occasion. No point having the Wales rugby team playing at the same time.
Could just imagine the ruckus in Cardiff pubs if they had to choose between rugby and football. All out civil war on the streets between the Wendyballers and the Eggchasers.
It had an average of 956,600 viewers for yesterday's game. These figures had beaten the previous record of 930,500 viewers when Matt Cardle won the X Factor Final and beat Rebecca Ferguson and One Direction in December 2010.
:-(
A former member
Bit late on this one, and having not really watched much of the rugby, I noticed last night that ITV4 is also using country-themed break bumpers as ITV have been.
It had an average of 956,600 viewers for yesterday's game. These figures had beaten the previous record of 930,500 viewers when Matt Cardle won the X Factor Final and beat Rebecca Ferguson and One Direction in December 2010.
Suspect that record will be broken again next week and probably the week after too, especially if they play New Zealand.
So a fantastic double header this afternoon with Scotland v Samoa and Australia v Wales producing two of the best matches of the tournament so far. Suspect ITV will be slightly relieved with the result of the latter as it spreads the home nations out more across the qualifiers by keeping Wales and Scotland apart and offering more attractive quarter final fixtures.
Also must say commentry wise it has been a real step up from four years ago which IIRC was lacking slightly. I've always rated Nick Mullens across the sports and David Flatman on the Australian match today was easily one of the best co-commentators they've had - far better than Ben Kay who spent too long drawing on pictures leading to viewers missing the action restarting.
The only weak link in the commentary box IMO has been Martin Gillingham - he clearly knows his stuff but is an absolute bore to listen too.
A bit of extra gold on the effects for the final today. And they won't get any credit as they're ITV but think their coverage of this tournament has been brilliant this year, easily their best coverage of any Rugby World Cup.
They've not been afraid of taking BTS, SS and BBC personnel on board and it's shown. If that's a template for the Six Nations then it'll be ok. I just hope they'll be able to do that whilst the domestic season is in full swing.
Agree - they've assembled a strong team and it will be great to have a wider pool of opinion for the Six Nations. Hopefully either Nick or Miles will be available as their lead commentator.
Only a pity that you had to be a Pay-TV subscriber to get the ITV4 matches in tolerable picture quality. (HD is pay TV only and their SD quality is like watching YouTube on dialup)
Not that many matches were shown on ITV4 this time.
If The Mail is to be believed they will retain the rights for 2019 with their coverage of this tournament as host broadcasters having gone down incredibly well with World Rugby.