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To stream the Six Nations from abroad, use a secure VPN to get an Irish IP address and stream every match on RTÉ Player and Virgin Media Play. ExpressVPN is our VPN of choice as it instantly unblocked both platforms without buffering. You can also combine its 30-day money-back guarantee with CyberGhost’s free trials and 45-day refund offer to get up to 89 days of free use.
There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to stream the Six Nations, but realizing it’s not shown where you are, or worse, that you’ll have to pay to watch it.
Whether you’re traveling, or living in a country without free coverage, there’s one simple solution to this predicament: a virtual private network (VPN).
We’ve used this method for years and it’s really simple to do. By using a VPN, you can get an Irish IP address from any country and gain unrestricted access to every fixture via RTÉ Player and Virgin Media Play.
Between them, these free-to-air platforms broadcast every single game: RTÉ has the rights to seven of the matches, while Virgin Media covers the remaining eight.
Unlike BBC iPlayer or ITVX, both of our suggested streaming services let you download their apps anywhere in the world — regardless of your app store region.
To avoid paying anything whatsoever, we recommend using a VPN with free trials as well as a long money-back guarantee to get a full refund once you’re done streaming.
It’s also a lot less dangerous than streaming the tournament illegally. The UK’s Crimestoppers revealed that unofficial streaming sites infected over three million devices with viruses last year alone.
Quick Guide: How to Watch the Six Nations Abroad
If you’re a UK expat with a device set to the UK app store, or with the apps already installed, then it’s easier to use BBC iPlayer and ITVX to stream the Six Nations. Just download a VPN, connect to a UK server, and use the apps as you normally would.
We’re fully independent and have been reviewing VPNs since 2016. Our ratings are based on our own testing results and are unaffected by financial incentives. Learn who we are and how we test VPNs.
| VPNs Tested | 61 |
| Total Hours of Testing | 30,000+ |
| Combined Years of Experience | 50+ |
Looking on Reddit and most publications, almost everyone suggests using BBC iPlayer and ITVX to watch the Six Nations.
We get it: they’re the obvious choice at first, but scratching beneath the surface reveals some major drawbacks.
The biggest ones are that you can’t download BBC iPlayer’s or ITVX’s apps outside of the UK, limiting you to in-browser streaming. Even worse, ITVX also prevents you from streaming live sports in your mobile browser, restricting you to just desktop viewing.
If you’re a UK expat with a UK app store account — or you were able to download the apps before leaving home — then the above doesn’t apply to you. Just connect to a UK VPN server and open BBC iPlayer or ITVX as usual. It’s the simplest way to watch, provided you already have the apps installed on your device.
Use the table below to see how our recommended services, RTÉ and Virgin Media Play, compare with other popular suggestions:
| Website | IP Location | Commentary Language | Coverage | Monthly Price | Video Resolution | App Store Region | Requires Postcode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RTÉ/Virgin Media | Ireland | English | All Matches | Free | 1080p | Worldwide | No |
| BBC iPlayer/ITVX | UK | English | All Matches | Free | 1080p | UK-only | Yes |
| Premier Sports | UK | English | 5 Matches | $22.84 | 1080p | UK-only | Yes |
| Peacock (NBC) | US | English | All Matches | $10.99 | 1080p | US-only | Yes |
| France TV | France | French | All Matches | Free | 1080p | France-only | Yes |
As shown above, RTÉ and Virgin Media Play are available to download regardless of your location. Aside from the former’s lack of a Fire TV app, both support apps for all major streaming devices.
You also don’t need to provide a post code upon sign-up, or pay for a TV license. Strangely, RTÉ will ask you enter an Irish ZIP code, but we learned that you can just leave that blank and continue.
From our personal experience, we know for a fact that BBC iPlayer has some of the strictest VPN blocks in the world. Given RTÉ and Virgin Media’s comparatively lower popularity, you can expect a far easier time accessing them.
You can use a VPN to stream the Six Nations for free on RTÉ and Virgin Media Television, but the exact process differs depending on which device and streaming service you use.
The easiest method is using your computer: connect to a VPN server in Ireland, go to the RTÉ or Virgin Media website, create an account, and start streaming.
We used ExpressVPN to stream the Six Nations on our Android.
You don’t need to provide an Irish post code at any point; even if there’s text field asking for one.
EXPERT ADVICE: Virgin Media Television only lets your register two devices per month, so choose carefully.
Expand the sections below for a more detailed walk through of each platform:
As mentioned above, streaming on a computer is the simplest way to watch the Six nations on either platform.
Instructions: How to Stream the Six Nations on Desktop
Unlike BBC iPlayer or ITVX, both RTÉ and Virgin Media Play do not restrict their apps to their home region.
This means you don’t need to change your app store region, and can simply download their apps as normal onto your smartphone.
Instructions: How to Watch the Six Nations on Phone/Tablet
You can use either streaming service quite easily on your Apple TV or Android TV as both provide dedicated apps. As with mobile, these apps aren’t geo-locked to Ireland, which means you can install them from virtually anywhere in the world.
Sadly, RTÉ Player doesn’t have a Fire TV app so you’ll need to stream it via Firestick’s built-in Silk Browser.
Thankfully, Virgin Media Play does support a Fire TV app, so its setup is identical to Apple TV and Android TV.
Instructions: How to Watch the Six Nations on Streaming Devices
Out of the 61 VPN services we regularly test, only a handful regularly unblock both RTÉ and Virgin Media Play.
From these, only one consistently worked with both platforms in 1080p: ExpressVPN.
We’ve also highlighted a safe, free VPN — CyberGhost — that worked with both platforms, at the cost of a poorer user experience.
Here’s how all three VPNs compare on the key metrics, including internet speed, price, and video quality:
| Pricing Plans |
|
|---|---|
| Money-Back Guarantee | 30 Days |
| Ireland Servers | 100+ |
| UK Servers | 1,750 |
| Simultaneous Connections | 10 |
| Support | 24/7 Live Chat |
| Compatible with |
|
You can use ExpressVPN to stream the Six Nations from Australia, the US, South Africa, and beyond, with full confidence that your connection won’t be flagged or blocked.
We personally used it to unblock Virgin Media and RTÉ with ease, and we even had success using it to access BBC iPlayer from abroad. Few VPNs can match this level of consistency across multiple broadcasters.
Not only is it reliable, but it provides attractive and easy-to-use apps for all major devices, including Fire TV, Apple TV, and Android TV. In fact, its compatibility can extend to every device on your home network via its unique router app.
Throughout testing, we loved using ExpressVPN to stream the Six Nations: it never buffered, its apps are a walk in the park to use, and any technical issues were answered promptly by their live support.
ExpressVPN worked with every Six Nations broadcaster.
Despite RTÉ Player’s recent upgrade to its geo-blocking, ExpressVPN remains the most reliable way to access the service without issue. With Virgin Media Play, it’s even easier: the VPN always works.
While ExpressVPN doesn’t disclose its exact Irish server count, we were given a new Irish IP address upon every connection and experienced zero server congestion. As such, you’re unlikely to encounter any error messages or slowdowns.
ExpressVPN provides over 100 Irish IP addresses.
Once connected, ExpressVPN’s impact on our download speed was negligible — regardless of our physical location.
Even when testing from the US, it slowed our internet speed by just 2%, which wasn’t nearly enough to make our video buffer.
If you’re like us, and prefer watching Rugby on a TV, then ExpressVPN has user-friendly apps for Fire TV, Android TV, and Appple TV.
Even if you have a smart TV that won’t support VPN apps, you can completely bypass this issue by connecting to ExpressVPN’s router app. No other VPN can match this level of compatibility, not even NordVPN.
Personally, we strongly recommend you take advantage of one of the above options, since RTÉ Player has a much smoother frame rate on TV compared to its mobile app.
It’s not just its compatibility that’s convenient, but its apps too. All of them use the same simple user interface, with a one-click power button resting on a sharp white, red, and green color palette.
This makes it easy to use regardless of your familiarity with VPNs or platform of your choice.
| Pricing Plans |
|
|---|---|
| Money-Back Guarantee | 45 Days |
| Ireland Servers | Undisclosed |
| UK Servers | 640 |
| Simultaneous Connections | 7 |
| Support | 24/7 Live Chat |
| Compatible with |
|
For a sensible free alternative, we recommend using CyberGhost. Unlike most free VPNs, it’s genuinely safe to use and won’t sell your personal data to the highest bidder.
You can avoid providing card details by signing up to its 24-hour free trial on desktop, which works on any device once created. Otherwise, you can activate its free trials on mobile (but make sure to cancel before renewal), or pay for a one-month deal and cancel within 45 days for a full refund.
While not as consistent as ExpressVPN, it unblocks both RTÉ Player and Virgin Media Play with rarely any issues. CyberGhost goes one step further, and even provides a dedicated server that’s optimized for bypassing RTÉ’s geo-blocks.
If you still have access to the UK app store, you can also use CyberGhost to stream the Six Nations via BBC iPlayer and ITVX. We tested this ourselves by installing BBC iPlayer while in the UK and then travelling abroad for the tournament — just make sure you connect to a UK VPN server.
We used CyberGhost’s free trial to stream the 6 Nations for free.
If you only want to watch matches from a single round, we suggest using CyberGhost’s 24-hour free trial. While you must activate it on a PC or Mac, your login details will work on any app (including streaming devices).
This method requires no payment details or further configuration once active — unlike most other VPN free trials.
To cover the entire tournament, you can sign up for any CyberGhost plan and take advantage of their 45-day money-back guarantee. To do so, you can contact the VPN’s support team who are required to honor this guarantee.
We strongly recommend this over most ‘free’ VPNs, since they often lack Irish servers, fail to unblock RTÉ Player, or pose security and privacy risks.
Since most VPNs only support one Irish server location, usually Dublin, CyberGhost’s inclusion of a streaming-optimised server for RTÉ Player is extremely praiseworthy.
CyberGhost uniquely provides servers optimized for streaming RTÉ Player.
That said, we were left disappointed, and oftentimes frustrated, by its unstable download speeds. While connected to Ireland, our download speed sometimes dropped by 50% before quickly recovering, causing our Six Nations stream to buffer or drop to 720p.
Ultimately, this skewered our speed results and led to an average slowdown of 17% when connecting into Ireland.
View the full Six Nations fixtures list and where to stream every match below:
We recommended the above VPNs based on our real experience of using them to stream the Six Nations, alongside our many years of reviewing them.
Multiple members of the testing team have also faced the all-too-familiar situation of trying to stream the Six Nations abroad, but discovering their VPN doesn’t work or causes their feed to buffer.
With all this in mind, the four most important factors we consider when recommending a VPN for the Six Nations are: access to RTÉ and Virgin Media Play, download speed, availability of Irish servers, and device compatibility.
Below, we’ve detailed how all four are important and how they each contribute to a VPN’s overall rating:
The TV channel for the Six Nations depends on whoever won the broadcasting rights in your country.
For example, Stan Sport broadcasts the tournament in Australia and Sky has the rights in New Zealand.
You can find a full list on the Six Nations website, or you can use a VPN to connect to Ireland and broadcast the full tournament for free on RTÉ Player and Virgin Media.
