Top10VPN is editorially independent. We may earn commissions if you buy a VPN via our links.
To watch the Six Nations for free, simply use a VPN to connect to Ireland and stream the full tournament on RTÉ Player and Virgin Media Play. ExpressVPN works best as it reliably unblocks both platforms without buffering. You can use its 30-day money-back guarantee for a full refund, or opt for our free VPN recommendation: CyberGhost.
There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to watch the Six Nations, but realizing the match isn’t shown where you are, or worse, that you’ll have to pay to watch it. Whether you’re abroad during this year’s tournament, or living in a country without free coverage, the solution is the same: use a VPN.
We’ve used this method for years and it’s really simple to do. By using a VPN to obtain an Irish IP address, you can gain access to RTÉ Player and Virgin Media Television, regardless of your real location.
Between them, these free-to-air platforms broadcast every single game: RTÉ has the rights to seven of the matches, while Virgin Media covering the remaining eight.
To avoid paying anything whatsoever, we recommend using a VPN with a money-back guarantee to get a full refund once you’re done streaming.
It’s also less risky than streaming the tournament illegally, with a recent study from Crimestoppers revealing that 3.3 million users infected their devices with viruses from unofficial streaming sites last year.
Quick Guide: How to Watch the 6 Nations for Free
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, we’re aware that 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 significant drawbacks.
The biggest ones for us are that you can’t download either platform’s app 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 your desktop.
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 Virgin Media Play on Mac.
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+ |
| Ireland Server Locations | Dublin |
| 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. 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 unblocked Virgin Media Play at every attempt.
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 |
| Ireland Server Locations | Dublin |
| 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.
You can use CyberGhost to stream the Six Nations on RTÉ Player.
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.
