You may remember, a couple of weeks ago, RTE's Against The Head sent a nation into a frenzy of self-defence by declaring that rugby was, indeed, the people's game. Some subsequent research by this writer came to the conclusion that, while rugby may not be the people's game, we will reliably tune into the Six Nations in our droves.
TV3's viewing figures from last Saturday's Six Nations crescendo have given further proof of that, with an enormous 1.328 million people tuning in to see Ireland beat England at Twickenham. The game delivered an average audience of 951,000, peaking at just beyond 1.3 million. Added to that, 100,000 people tuned in via the 3Player.
That makes the game the most-watched TV event of the year, and would have been the second-most watched event of last year, beaten only by the Late Late Toy Show (1.345 million viewers).
While it hasn't quite scaled the heights of the Toy Show, the win over England is the most-watched sports programme in Irish in years.
Incredibly, it beat all of Ireland's games at Euro 2016 including the quarter-final against France, which drew 1.262 million viewers to RTE. It also beats all of Ireland's games at the 2015 Rugby World Cup, and all of the All-Ireland finals of recent years. (Last year's football final drew 1.142 million viewers).
Elsewhere, the IRFU have rewarded a trio of their Grand Slam heroes with new contracts. Rory Best and Rob Kearney have signed on until after the 2019 World Cup, while Iain Henderson has penned a new, three-year central contract with Ulster and the IRFU.
