ITV Sport will revisit another vintage sporting year, delving into its Rugby World Cup archive to bring fans the entire 2003 tournament in Rugby World Cup 2003 Revisited.
Complete coverage of every match from the fifth edition of the Rugby World Cup will play out on ITV Hub from Monday, 20 July, while all seven England matches from the tournament will be replayed in full on ITV4 every night from 20-26 July at 7pm.
Rugby union fans can relive all the euphoria from a year that saw the England team go head-to-head with host nation Australia in a bid to lift the trophy, in an epic bid for glory that sealed Jonny Wilkinson’s status as one of the all time sporting greats.
All 48 games will be available to watch online via the ITV Hub, starting with the first round of pool matches, which saw Scotland play Japan, Wales against Canada and Ireland take on Romania, plus England face Georgia in their opening pool C clash, which will also be replayed on ITV4.
Clive Woodward’s all-star side went into the tournament ranked number one in the world and featured the talents of Jonny Wilkinson, the fleet-footed Jason Robinson, Lawrence Dallaglio, Richard Hill and their inspirational leader, Martin Johnson.
As with ITV’s recent Euro 96 Relived series, all of ITV4’s Rugby World Cup match replays will feature the original ITV Sport studio presentation, analysis and match commentary as broadcast to viewers at the time.
ITV held exclusive UK rights to the 2003 tournament, with its coverage presented by Jim Rosenthal and Angus Scott, while studio pundits included rugby union legends Francois Pienaar, Michael Lynagh, Will Carling, Austin Healey and Ieuan Evans, and Gabby Logan and Chris Maughan were the channel’s roving reporters in Australia.
John Taylor and Steve Smith were ITV’s lead commentary team in Australia, calling the majority of England’s matches, including all of their knockout stage matches and the final itself. Other ITV commentators included Nigel Starmer-Smith, Mark Robson, Bob Symonds, Jamie Salmon and David Sole.
On 22 November 2003, a bumper audience of nearly 15 million people, more than 80% of those watching TV at the time, tuned in to ITV1 to watch Jonny Wilkinson drop-kick England to victory in the final.
Paul Mortimer, Head of Digital Channels & Acquisitions, ITV said:
“With several major sporting tournaments on temporary hiatus, we’ve done the next big thing and raided the archives to serve up another glorious sporting classic.
“The response to the recent re-runs of Euro 96 proved that there’s never been such an appetite for sporting nostalgia and we hope the Rugby World Cup 2003 gets people in the spirit all over again.”
As well as coverage on ITV4 and ITV Hub, fans can also follow the best of the action on ITV Rugby’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram channels as well as featured match highlights on the ITV Sport YouTube channel.
All matches will be available to watch online via ITV Hub, while selected matches featuring the Home Nations will also be broadcast ‘as-live’ via @ITVRugby on Twitter.
Full TV/online schedule for ITV’s Rugby World Cup 2003 Revisited, as well as details of ITV’s presenting and commentary teams for the England matches.
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