by It has been more than 140 years ago that England Wales defeated 2-0 in St. Helen’s in Swansea in the very first game of the old home championship in 1883, and in the back bar of the Kings Head there is an old man who will tell it that the foot of the English wing player was in contact when he scored the winning goal.
Even the modern championship is progressing. The Six Nations are 25 this year. The tournament brought Italy with it and they celebrated this occasion with a 34:20 win against Scotland in the first game. Diego Domínguez, her little magician in the Fly-Half game, shot three drop goals and a total of 29 points, and Scotland has not had a relaxing flight to Rome since then.
The year 2000 was also the year in which Ireland selected a skinny boy named Brian O’driscoll from the outside center, which had just completed the Blackrock College. He achieved a hat trick in Paris, while Scott Quinnell was the first player of the tournament to be sent to the sins after he was overwhelmed by Lner with a tackling so late.
It was the year in which England scored 50 points against Ireland and 40 points against Wales and then, as so often in the last round, missed the chance of a Grand Slam. This time they lost Scotland, which was previously winning, on a dirty day in the mud and in the Oomska in Murrayfield at six. The lifting had just occurred, the jerking had just turned out and the players’ jerseys still fluttered in the wind and looked better.
All Six Nations mark a transition that begins in winter and ends in spring. One of the reasons why it is so popular is that it fills the most bleak weekends of the year and we know that as soon as it is over, the sun will come early enough.
In the course of these 25 tournaments, the sport itself went through a change. In 2000 most players grew up in the amateur area; Today most of them are not even born during this time. At that time, Rugby Union still had a certain amateurhood, especially when it came to workload and the well -being of the players. In most places, the plan was to do the same thing that they had always done, only seven days a week.
England and France had more resources and a greater depth strength, which was sufficient to give them an advantage, while everyone thought about how to do professional rugby. Together they had won seven of the last eight games before Scotland’s victory at the last Five Nations in 1999 and they would win seven of the eight games afterwards.
In this era there were three Grand Slams, one for Martin Johnson’s Orcs in 2003, two fabulous French on both sides for Fabien Galthiés, and the greatest concern was that the tournament would become a competition with two teams.
So the probability that England would win a Grand Slam over the next 21 years would be high. But here we are in 2025 and the only other year they enjoyed was in 2016 when Eddie Jones was beating the survivors who had been humiliated last season at the World Cup, with 18 victories in a row .
There were five titles, but often one remembers them because of the one game that was lost – especially to the three they won in 2001, 2011 and 2017 when England won four out of four and then went to the Dublin last round.
England’s expectations always seem to surpass his achievements. We seem to forget that they were so mediocre in the 21st century. France, on the other hand, took extreme measures. Galthié’s team had to give way to the team of Fabien Pelous, who won two titles in a row in 2006 and 2007, the second on one of the greatest days of the tournament when Elvi’s Vermeulen brought them at the last minute with the point difference from Ireland.
There was another Grand Slam for the team of Thierry Dusautoir in 2010 and then more than a decade for more than a decade when the game there seemed to be in ruins all the time. France was the bottom of 2013 and stayed in the lower three places in seven of eight years in the 2010s.
Galthié and the big project needed to bring France back to life. If you consider what he has done as a player and what he has done as a coach, he can claim to be one of the most influential men in the history of the competition.
It was Mike Ruddock’s Wales, who finally broke through the Anglo-French duopola in 2005. There is gavin henson, shaved legs, silver boots, hair combed with a piece of gel back, which caused the penalty from 45 meters in the 76th minute to defeat England.
“If he does that,” said Eddie Butler in the comment, “he can shave every part of his body that he wants.” And then after an attack in the middle of the field, he stumbled down and scored in the first few minutes in the crucial Game against Ireland a goal.
Since Wales is whale, they somehow managed to push Ruddock out of his job 18 months later. Fortunately, they replaced him with Warren Gatland and won the Slam in 2008 again.
Gatland’s old team, Ireland, was right behind them. In 2009 they won their first Grand Slam since 1948, Ronan O’gara’s drop goal in the last few minutes against Wales. It was overdue for the talent that they had, because O’DrisColl was now on the best way to become the best Try scorer of the competition ever, with O’Agara in its middle, Rob Kearney behind and Paul o ‘Connell in the center of anger, horny pack ahead.
They took their time, but in the end it was Ireland that really got the professionalism. They have won the title seven times in the past decade, as many as they made in the 50 years before when they played at the Five Nations.
Under Joe Schmidt and then Andy Farrell, Ireland became the epitome of a professional rugby team, in which every detail seems to be tailored to the needs of the national team from the student level. Wales, on the other hand, always seemed to perform miracles despite the condition of his domestic game.
As Gatland often said, they were one side outside the system. While he was a great innovator in his time and, among other things, committed to quick defense, the success of Wales always owed a little older, elementary forces, such as his ability to persuade his players to give everything team .
And Scotland? There were many famous victories, but they are still waiting for their first Six nation title or, surprisingly, even for their first second place. And that, even though they played the game in every conceivable way, from the time they refused to play the ball into the 22 opponent’s 22, until the time they insisted on it in the to play your own ranks. They live in the hope of experiencing something tomorrow and in eternal expectations that this year will finally be yours.
This is more than Italy’s fans have to manage: 25 years after this famous premiere, you can still count the tournament’s games won on fingers and toes.
