Six Nations

Anyone who thought those nice Autumn Nations Cup graphics might have filtered down to the Six Nations...nope, same old mid-2000s-BBC-inspired graphics, which are now very long in the tooth at this stage.

They've not aged well these graphics - looked stunning when introduced in 2015 or 2016 IIRC, but now look quite dated and the scorebar feels like it is twice the size it needs to be.

I expect though with a new rights deal dye next year this may be the last year of them.

2014 was when they first appeared (making this their eighth season) - though in that first season, the BBC still took a clean feed and used their own graphics. Also they’ve been tweaked quite a few times over the years, with the original blue colour (still used for Women’s games) changed first to red and then to black when the sponsor changed from RBS to NatWest and then to Guinness, and the font was originally narrower but swapped for the present one in 2015.

'fun' fact: the host broadcaster also creates an alternate version of the feed with a generic 6 Nations logo, for countries where alcohol sponsorship isn't allowed.

Meanwhile, have ITV borrowed a set from a quiz show for their studio at Twickenham?

They've been using this set in other sports coverage too (well, I know they've used it for Football)

Interesting that would be the case - for European club rugby, I think there’s only one world feed which gets either “Heineken Champions Cup” or “Champions Cup” branding depending on where the match is taking place and is always in the host country’s language.

not entirely true - S4C create a world feed with English graphics, and a domestic feed with Welsh. I admit I'd missed the French ones missing the Heineken sponsorship.

Sam Warbuton is so much better utilised as a pundit than he was as the water boy.

They were purple during the brief NatWest reign.

I should have remembered that, TV3’s graphics were also purple (and are now red, having become Virgin Media) at the time so they were a good match.

Talking of VM One they had a freeze up during the pre-match formalities of Wales v Ireland, on satellite at least. Resolved in time for kick off.

Presumably all commentary being done off tube for non-home games in all nations.

Do VM1 usually do their own commentary for non-Ireland games or take the world feed?

Own, Dave McIntyre/Alan Quinlan on England v Scotland, John Forrest/Reggie Corrigan on Italy v France. While I presume the commentary was off-tube, Shane Horgan was in the Principality today.