Rugby World Cup

Actually you were lucky to reach the final and played poor rugby throughout the tournament but thats for a different place, all the media did was create unneccessary hope and expectation so they could sell more papers today for the "inquest" and get better viewing figures. No reasonably minded person had England as favourites.

I'm sure ITV were loving their little revenue boost, I wonder how much Cadbury paid for the last ad before kick off (the full-length "gorilla" with a little patriotic message on the front of the drum kit, if you didn't see it)

Well, it was more a case of Wilkinson didn't play well, so England didn't play well. England's only hope really of beating South Africa is that they weren't expected to beat Australia or France either - and arguably you could say that it's been a greater achievement for this squad just to reach the final than it was for the 2003 squad who always had winning as their target.


Peaked at 15.8m and averaged 12.8m, which is only about a million and a half more than last week. I thought the average might have been a bit more to be honest.

Ironically though the semi-final was probably a bigger game - built up as the biggest game in four years, while the final was really the biggest game in a week, but actually not quite as big if you know what I mean.

The highest ratings so far this year are The Vicar of Dibley (BBC1, Mon 1 Jan) and Coronation Street (ITV1, Mon 15 Jan) with 13.08m

In 3rd place it's Concert for Diana (BBC1, Sun 1 Jul) with 12.22m and then Britain's Got Talent (ITV1 Sun 17 Jun) with 11.58m

I expect when the BARB officials come out, the Rugby will end up with an average of more than 13.08m