Last night’s NRL grand final pulled a match-high of just 1.86 million viewers according to OzTAM metro numbers.

Putting that in perspective, last year’s finale pulled 2.12 million viewers.

However, putting the numbers in perspective, the game did feature the Roosters at unbackable odds and featured two teams (the Canberra Raiders) that would be deemed unpopular within NRL’s fervent patch of Sydney and Brisbane.

The televised game reached a match-high of 1.86 million, while 1.084 million hung about for the trophy presentation and 939,000 tuned in for the pre-match entertainment. In more exciting news, some 284,000 watched the women’s grand final curtain-raiser.

Arguably, the network most interested in the NRL would be 10, with speculation again surfacing over the weekend that it was eyeing the rights post-2022.

Nine easily won Sunday with 46.4 per cent of the audience share (all channels). Seven had an admirable 23.3 per cent, the ABC had 11.3 per cent, 10 did 10.4 per cent and SBS enjoyed 8.6 per cent.

Naturally, the grand final pretty much skewered every other show for Sunday night.

Nine’s 6pm news (864,000) got a halo effect and beat rival Seven’s (853,000). Nine’s post-league movie, the epic Rambo, did 239,000

Anti-league lovers tuned in for Seven’s The Real Dirty Dancing (499,000) and the soon-to-be-deceased Sunday Night (472,000).

10 appeared to particularly suffer the grand final blues, its best was The Sunday Project with just 276,000 and The Graham Norton Show with 267,000.

The ABC’s evening ran thus: 7pm news (508,000), Grand Designs: The Street (378,000) and Les Norton (273,000).

Over at SBS, its best was a repeat of Joanna Lumley: The Quest For Noah’s Ark which did 187,000.