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The Six Nations Championship[a] (referred to as RBS 6 Nations for sponsorship reasons), known before 2000 as the Five Nations Championship, is an annual international rugby union competition involving six European sides: England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. The Six Nations Championship is the successor to the Five Nations and the Home Nations Championship, which was the first international rugby union tournament in the Northern Hemisphere.[1] The winners of the Six Nations are seen as being the European Champions.[2] The event is currently sponsored by the Royal Bank of Scotland. Ireland are the current Grand Slam title holders, for the first time since 1948, having won the competition in 2009 by beating all other teams, and winning the Triple Crown by beating England, Scotland and Wales.
[edit] Format Played annually, the format of the Championship is simple: each team plays every other team once, with home field advantage alternating from one year to the next. Two points are awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss. Unlike many other rugby union competitions the bonus point system is not used. If a team wins all its games, they are said to have won a 'Grand Slam'. Back to back Grand Slams have been achieved on five occasions, by Wales in 1908 and 1909, by England in 1913 and 1914, 1923 and 1924 and 1991 and 1992, and by France in 1997 and 1998. England holds the record for the number of Grand Slams won with 12, followed by Wales with 10, France with 8, Scotland with 3 and Ireland with 2. Victory by any Home Nation over the other three Home Nations is a 'Triple Crown'. The Triple Crown has twice been won on four consecutive occasions, once by Wales in 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979 and once by England in 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998. England hold the record for the number of Triple Crowns won with 23, followed by Wales with 20, Scotland with 10 and Ireland with 10. Although this achievement has long been a feature of the tournament, it was not until 2006 that a physical trophy, commissioned by the Royal Bank of Scotland, was awarded. At the end of the tournament a team that finishes at the bottom of the table is said to have won the Wooden Spoon. Several individual competitions take place under the umbrella of the tournament. The oldest such regular competition is for the Calcutta Cup, contested annually between England and Scotland since 1879. It is named the Calcutta Cup as it is made from melted-down Indian Rupees. Since 1988, the Millennium Trophy has been awarded to the winner of the game between England and Ireland. Since 2007, France and Italy have contested the Giuseppe Garibaldi Trophy; it was created for the 200th anniversary of the birth of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian hero who helped unify Italy. Garibaldi was born in Nizza (now the French city of Nice) in 1807. Prior to 1994, teams equal on points shared the championship. Since then, ties have been broken by considering the points difference of the teams. The rules of the championship further provide that if teams tie on both match points and points difference, the team which scored the most tries wins the championship. If even this decider is tied, the tying teams share the championship.[3] To date, however, match points and points difference have been sufficient to decide the championship. [edit] Trophies[edit] Championship Trophy The winners of the 6 Nations are presented with the Championship Trophy.[4] This was originally conceived by the Earl of Westmorland, and was first presented to the winners of the 1993 championship, France. It is a sterling silver trophy, designed by James Brent-Ward and made by a team of eight silversmiths from the London firm William Comyns; it is valued at £55,000. Although originally silver on the inside, the trophy became so corroded through celebratory champagne fillings that it is now plated with 22 carat gold for protection. It has 15 side panels representing the 15 members of the team and with three handles to represent the three officials (referee and two touch judges). The cup has a capacity of 3.75 litres – sufficient for five bottles of champagne. Within the mahogany base is a concealed drawer which contains six alternate finials, each a silver replica of one of the team emblems, which can be screwed on the detachable lid. [edit] Triple Crown TrophyAs no trophy was historically awarded for winning the Triple Crown, it was often called 'the invisible cup'. In 2006 the primary sponsor of the competition, the Royal Bank of Scotland, commissioned a trophy to be awarded to Triple Crown winners. The award, a silver dish known as the Triple Crown Trophy, was contested for the first time in the 2006 Six Nations. Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll claimed the trophy for Ireland at Twickenham on March 18 after a last-minute try from Shane Horgan gave Ireland a 28–24 win over England. Ireland currently hold the Triple Crown after beating Wales 17–15 at the Millenium Stadium on 21 March 2009. [edit] Other trophiesSeveral other trophies are contested within the main competition, mostly as long-standing fixtures between pairs of teams.
[edit] Current venues As per 2009, Six Nations matches were held in the following stadia:
Croke Park is not the normal home of Irish rugby; it is the flagship stadium of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). Ireland's traditional home, Lansdowne Road, has been unavailable since the start of 2007 due to the construction of a completely new stadium on the site of what had become an increasingly run-down structure. The all-Ireland governing body for rugby union, the Irish Rugby Football Union, reached an agreement with the GAA to allow Ireland to play their 6 Nations fixtures at Croke Park in 2007. The agreement has continued throughout the construction of the new stadium at the Lansdowne Road site, which will be known as Aviva Stadium when it opens in April 2010. Ireland will play their first Six Nations matches at their new ground in 2011. Similarly, the Stadio Flaminio may no longer be big enough, since "palla ovale" is becoming more popular in Italy. Rugby games may in future be held at football stadiums such as the Stadio Olimpico in Rome or in the North where rugby is most popular. Stadio Luigi Ferraris in Genoa (42,000 seats) or Stadio Ennio Tardini, Parma (almost 28,000 seats) have been suggested as alternative grounds. But recently, improvements for Flaminio have been announced increasing the likelihood that rugby will stay at Stadio Flamino, although still making it the smallest of the six nations grounds.[10] [edit] AnthemsAlthough God Save the Queen is, by custom and usage, the national anthem of the whole United Kingdom[11], in many sporting events it is used only by England; Wales and Scotland use separate anthems, which both hold unofficial national anthem status. Ireland, whose rugby team represents two jurisdictions (the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland), have a specially commissioned anthem for rugby internationals.
[edit] Results
[edit] OverallOverall England has the most Home Nations, Five Nations, and Six Nations tournament victories with 25 (excluding 10 shared victories). Next is Wales with 24 (excluding 11 shared).
[edit] Home Nations 1883–1909
[edit] Five Nations 1910–1931
[edit] Home Nations 1932–1939
[edit] Five Nations 1940–1999[edit] Six Nations 2000–present
[edit] Six Nations All-Time Table (2000–2009)Includes matches played 15 March 2009
[edit] Longest wait without a championship win
[edit] Last Grand Slam Win
[edit] RecordsMain article: List of Six Nations Championship records The record for individual points in one match is held by England's Jonny Wilkinson with 35 points scored against Italy in 2001 and points in one season with 89 (scored in 2001). Ronan O'Gara holds the record for career points with 499 points. The record for tries in a match is held by Scotsman George Lindsay who scored five tries against Wales in 1887.[15] The record for appearances is held by Irishman Mike Gibson who played in 56 Five Nations matches (Italy had not become part of the Championship yet) matches between 1964 and 1979.[15] The most points scored by a team in one match was England when they scored 80 points against Italy in 2001. England also scored the most ever points in a season in 2001 with 229, and most tries in a season with 28.[15] Wales hold the record for least tries conceded during a season in the Six Nations era, conceding only 2 in 5 games in 2008, but the 1977 Grand Slam-winning France team did not concede a try in their four matches. [edit] Six Nations points scoring statistics 2000–2009The following table summarises the total number of points, and the number of tries, scored by each team in the Six Nations
The record number of points in a season is 229 by England in 2001. They also scored the most tries (28) in a single Six Nations Tournament that year. The lowest scoring team is Italy, who have only managed 745 points. [edit] ExpansionGeorgia have expressed interest in joining the 6 Nations to create a 7 Nations Tournament or possibly having a promotion/relegation play-off with the last place team. Argentina did have an interest in joining the 6 Nations but they will now join the Tri-Nations in the year 2012, possibly becoming the Quad Nations or 4 Nations.[citation needed] [edit] Women'sMain article: Women's Six Nations Championship The Women's Six Nations Championship is run to the same schedule and on the same weekends as the men's competition. The first women's tournament Six Nations was in the 2002 season, though a Five Nations ran from 1999 to 2001, and a Home Nations tournament from 1996–1998. The tournament included the same national teams as the men's competition did, with the exception that Spain took part instead of Italy. This continued until 2007 when, as a result of the formal adoption of the competition by the Six Nations Committee, Spain was replaced with Italy – purely in order to align both the women's and men's national team participants. Historically in women's rugby Spain had been a significantly stronger team than not only Italy, but had occasionally finished above Ireland, Wales, and Scotland in the tournament. [edit] See also
[edit] Notesa. ^ Name of the Six Nations Championship in the languages of participating countries: [edit] Bibliography
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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