Despite attempting to enter into negotiations with Sky Sport, RTÉ will not have the rights to broadcast Ireland's crucial Six Nations game against England at Twickenham on Saturday week.
The English RFU's exclusive home-match deal with BSkyB has prevented terrestrial coverage of the Twickenham games for the past three seasons, and although ITV does have delayed rights to the fixture, the BBC and RTÉ do not.
Ireland's day-of-days against Wales means the expectations will be fevered for the Twickenham game, already regarded as the key 80 minutes of the championship.
"It is a disappointing situation but one which is beyond our control," said the RTÉ head of television sport, Niall Cogley.
"This issue also arose on Ireland's last visit to England. Naturally we will broadcast the other two Six Nations games on that weekend, and the panel will discuss the Ireland-England game in depth. It is a slightly bizarre situation for us, and understandably very frustrating for fans who wanted to watch the game at home."
The controversial RFU deal, which began in 1998, is scheduled to expire after this season. This means there will be a new bidding process for the rights to next year's championship, which could have a far-reaching effect on the nature of the coverage of the championship.
The increased popularity of rugby union and the quality of the Six Nations championship in recent seasons may prompt Sky to attempt to secure full rights.
"In a way, we at RTÉ will be at a remove from the situation, in that it will come down to a straight bid between Sky and BBC. We are in no position to predict that Sky will offer more for the Six Nations than the BBC, but if that happens, then we would obviously press for a non-exclusivity clause for Ireland.
"So there is a possibility that Sky will assume full rights of the championship, but I am fairly hopeful that will not be the case."
The Six Nations is now a cohesive entity, which means any decisions taken will be for the championship as a package.
"It may well come down to the highest bidder, but other concerns, such as BBC's contribution to rugby and the market share of the viewing audience, will also play a part.
"If you use boxing as a parallel, since that sport went down the route of cable and pay-per-view its profile has suffered enormously. The Six Nations committee will be very aware of that danger"" reckoned Cogley.
The BBC's securing the rights for the Six Nations has had no impact on RTÉ's schedule, as the British broadcaster has no financial interest in the Irish market. Sky, for obvious reasons, does.
Irish viewers with no access to Sky will at least get to see the scores through the "news bulletins" provision that permits a brief synopsis of the event.
"It is a fairly meagre return in comparison to what we are accustomed to showing, but it is simply out of our hands."
To further complicate matters, the timing of the next series of matches means that the conclusion of the Wales v France game might well run into the beginning of the Scotland v Italy tie.
"It's a bit of a cock-up and makes it slightly more complicated from a broadcast point of view, but we should be able to resolve it," Cogley said.
