Six Nations 2016

No, that's on the BBC. Only Wales and France tend to host the Friday night matches so they'll continue to be on the BBC.

The pitchside pundits are really pointless and add very little to the coverage, ITV did this for some of the World Cup games as well.. We only see them for 1 minute and they're gone..

Usually they use the co-commentators and the BBC do exactly the same. Next weeks coverage though is clearly missing a neutral voice in either commentary or the studio.

10 people on the one match seems a bit much, they should promote Marco Bortolami to the studio and get rid of the pitchside element as a 2nd set of studio pundits. They can have Bayfield or Gabriel Clarke talking to the commentators or some guests they find but not when they already have a studio, ITV should be reminded it is only Italy v England not New Zealand v Australia in the World Cup Final so their coverage is feeling over crowded at the moment.

Just to finish talk on this weekend coverage Rugby Special was on BBC Two at 7pm and had John Inverdale presenting from Salford with Keith Wood, Martyn Williams and Jeremy Guscott. The titles remained the same as live coverage but the old Rugby Special music was played over the coming up section of the show. The BBC commentary of Ireland v Wales was provided by Eddie Butler and former Ireland Scrum Half Tomas O'Leary.

I wonder, are the BBC or ITV acting as host broadcasters for their respective UK matches, or is there a common approach with the same OB provider etc?

Having heard the commentary yesterday, Nick mullins did say the "Irish television company have chosen so and so as man of the match" after the graphic came up on screen, which suggests RTE did host broadcast this game. On that basis, I'd think BBC and ITV will host broadcast their own games, but using the unified graphics package.

Otherwise, Nick Mullins would've said the man of the match at the same time the graphic came up, or just before.

The broadcasters in each country act as the host broadcaster and it was mentioned during the World Cup that ITV put some features in at Twickenham with the Six Nations also in mind.

In the event of Wales, Scotland, England or Ireland playing one another, do the nations have their own, more partisan, coverage?

Well that's an event that occures a lot in the Six Nations.

Wales used to have their own coverage but haven't for a number of years, although Scrum V airs instead of Rugby Special on Sundays.

BBC NI also used to do their own thing for Ireland matches both in 6 Nations and Autumn Internationals. For the Autumn matches they would have their own studio with punditry and commentators but in the 6 Nations they would use the national BBC coverage with Inverdale etc. but use BBC NI commentary, so instead of Eddie Butler and Brian Moore we would have Jim Neilly and someone like David Humphreys or Tyrone Howe but the last time they did their own opt-out commentary it was at Croke Park and Ireland haven't played there since 2010 and UTV haven't done any coverage in fact hardly any sport since they did their own coverage of the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

We do have a Pancake Day sting. looks just like last year.

Not quite, there's more detail on the pancake and a shadow.



Last year...