RTÉ Sport’s extensive coverage of all three 2017 6 Nations championships – RBS 6 Nations, Women’s 6 Nations and U20’s 6 Nations – kicks off this evening with a live double header from Broadwood Stadium, Glasgow.

Joanne Cantwell will introduce Scotland v Ireland in the Women’s 6 Nations followed by the Irish U20’s also against Scotland, with all the action kicking off at 6.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.

It gives Aon as sponsors of the Women’s team and PwC in the same role with the U20’s equal airtime to reward their support of sport away from the headline act.

Vodafone will still draw the biggest numbers though as the senior men’s team takes to the field in Edinburgh on Saturday afternoon.

RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player will have full live coverage of all of Ireland’s games in both the Women’s and U20’s 6 Nations championships throughout their respective campaigns.

This is the last year for a while that RTÉ will have coverage of the tournament after the bidding war with TV3 went to their rivals from next year.  The same happened in Britain with ITV stepping in to take some of the rights that the BBC had held across generations.

Ulster Bank will benefit from the broadcast sponsorship on RTÉ as part of the overall deal  with RBS but that too will be ending this year as a new tournament sponsor remains to be revealed.

RTÉ is definitely not letting go though without a powerful statement of the reach they can deliver.

Read more about future broadcasting arrangements for the RBS 6 Nations

Saturday Sport and Sunday Sport on Radio One will have live coverage of all of Ireland’s RBS 6 Nations games as the tournament progresses while RTÉ 2fm’s Game On will also feature interviews, reports and the best of analysis.

Against the Head returns to RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player on Monday when Joanne Cantwell alongside Donal Lenihan and Eddie O’Sullivan will take a look back at the first weekend’s action.

RTÉ’s dedicated 6 Nations website www.rte.ie/sixnations will have pre-match analysis, live blogs, reports and all of the big match fall-out and analysis from every game in the 2017 RBS 6 Nations.

Read more about the end of the RBS involvement with the Six Nations

Madigan on Monday is Ian Madigan’s post-6 Nations column looking back at the game just gone, and of course you can find all of the news and views on RTÉ Sport’s extensive social media coverage on Twitter (@rterugby) and Facebook (RTÉ Rugby).

The RTÉ Rugby Podcast, presented by Hugh Cahill, will be available each Thursday evening, focussed on the 6 Nations for the duration of the competition

RTÉ2’s RBS 6 Nations, Ireland U20’s and Women’s 6 Nations matches and coverage will be available to view live and on-demand on RTÉ Player with the biggest moments from each weekend available every Monday. RTÉ Player will also show match highlights, post-match interviews, the best of analysis from RTÉ Rugby’s expert panel and RTÉ News reports of team announcements and press conferences as they happen.

By the time it gets to England on St Patrick’s Day Weekend this could get a bit emotional.