Compiled by JOHNNY WATTERSON

RWC 2011 has not lost any of its appeal and has attracted record television audience figures in New Zealand, Australia and France.

RTÉ has also had encouraging figures for the games. The average for Ireland’s pool matches (ie the percentage of people watching television at the time, who were watching the programme) in 2011 was 400,000 with the game against Italy pulling in 630,000, higher even than the quarter-final against Wales which drew a 507,000 average and higher than the pool match against Australia that drew 537,000. This compared favourably with the Australian World Cup, where the average viewers for Ireland ties against Romania, Namibia, Argentina and Australia was 275,000, while the quarter-final average against France was 313,000.

In New Zealand a record 1.97 million cumulative television audience tuned in to the 20-6 semi-final win over Australia, while a nationwide audience of 3.234 million Aussies watched the match. In France TF1 attracted 9.5 million for their semi-final with Wales, the average audience for the match at 73 per cent. ITV had its highest audience with an average of 5.9 million viewers watching France win over Wales.

Player of the Year shortlist: No room for O’Brien

AFTER yesterday’s announcement of the shortlist for this year’s IRB Player of the Year, Keith Wood remains the only Irish player to have won the award since its inaugural year in 2001.

Irish flanker and European Player of the Year Seán O’Brien has been omitted as the IRB has nominated six players, four of them involved in Sunday’s final in Eden Park and two from Australia.

The New Zealand trio of scrumhalf Piri Weepu, flanker Jerome Kaino and centre Ma’a Nonu along with the only Northern Hemisphere player on the list, French captain Thierry Dusautoir, are joined by the Aussie pair of flanker Davis Pocock and scrumhalf Will Genia.

There is no mention either of three-time winner Richie McCaw, who won back-to-back awards last year and the year before as well as in 2006.

McCaw may blame the judging panel, which is chaired by John Eales and is made up of former international players with more than 500 caps and four RWC winner’s medals between them.

Will Greenwood, Gavin Hastings, Raphael Ibanez, Francois Pienaar, Agustin Pichot, Scott Quinnell, Tana Umaga and Irish prop Paul Wallace have watched more than 100 hours of rugby and awarded points to the three players they thought stood out in each match. An additional weighting system for scoring points has been applied to matches in the World Cup.

PREVIOUS WINNERS: 2010 – Richie McCaw (New Zealand); 2009 – Richie McCaw (New Zealand); 2008 – Shane Williams (Wales); 2007 – Bryan Habana (South Africa); 2006 – Richie McCaw (New Zealand); 2005 – Dan Carter (New Zealand); 2004 – Schalk Burger (South Africa); 2003 – Jonny Wilkinson (England); 2002 – Fabien Galthie (France); 2001 – Keith Wood (Ireland).

Sell-out: For final clash

THE last tickets to Sunday's Rugby World Cup final have sold out, while there are still almost 10,000 tickets left for Wales meeting with Australia for the bronze position clash tomorrow.

For the final officials held some tickets back. At midday yesterday (New Zealand time), the last 900 tickets went on sale, ranging from €442 ($767) to €736 ($1,278) and within 20 minutes 600 tickets were snapped up. The rest had been sold by 3pm.

There are still 9,500 tickets available to the bronze clash between Australia and Wales.

Tough 10: Cruden well used to battling

There are few people, even sidelined Dan Carter, that would begrudge the third-choice All Black outhalf Aaron Cruden a chance at glory. At 19 years old, Cruden was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which forced him to cut short his debut season with Manawatu.

But Cruden's loyalty and toughness and sense of responsibility towards his Manawatu team-mates ensured he didn't tell them he was due to have his testicle removed until days after a crucial Ranfurly Shield challenge against Auckland. He felt they didn't need the distraction.

Cruden was also planning to play the next weekend against Taranaki had the cancer not spread to his lungs, requiring chemotherapy. In his teenage days, he also had a chance to represent New Zealand at secondary school level, but a battle with tuberculosis took him out of the running there.