BBC One's live coverage of Ireland's 43-13 Six Nations victory at Croke Park pulled in 7m viewers and a 34.1% share, according to unofficial overnight figures.
However, it was not enough to eclipse the huge popularity of reality ice skating contest, ‘Dancing On Ice'.
The show, which featured former pop band member Lisa Scott Lee being voted off on Saturday, pulled in 8.7m viewers and a 37.5% share on ITV1.
Later on in the evening, sci-fi dinosaur drama, ‘Primeval', held steady compared to the previous week's performance, with 5.8m viewers and a 25.4% share on ITV1.
The six parter competes for viewers with BBC1's Graham Norton fronted variety show ‘When Will I Be Famous?', which pulled in 5.2m viewers and a 22.8% share.
On Sunday, 'Inspector Morse' spin-off 'Lewis' continued to to be a ratings hit on ITV1 following last week's debut.
It pulled in 7.3m viewers and a 31.% share, losing just 0.1 viewers compared to last Sunday.
In the multichannel market, Sky's US import, ‘Lost', is proving to be a very costly acquistion. The show pulled in 876,000 viewers and a 5.1% share.
Sky paid around £1m per episode for ‘Lost', which means that at the current rate, it is paying more than a £1 per viewer.
Elsewhere, Channel 4's chat show, ‘The Charlotte Church Show', performed well on the first night of its new run. It pulled in 2.2m viewers and an 11% share. The last run averaged 1.7m viewers.
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