Six Nations 2025

The triple crown is not an achievement of any significance anymore....its similar now to the likes of the calcutta cup or the centenary quaich or the other mickey mouse trophies available during the tournament....

All that matters is the championship and /or grand slam..

They're the ultimate goal alright. We've had it good in recent years, since 2009. It may well go back to when we'll celebrate Triple Crowns again.

Look at Scotland, they'd kill for a Triple Crown. We don't have huge player numbers, Connacht, Munster and Ulster aren't going great. Leinster buying the big foreign names to try and get over the line in the ERC. And if the U20s getting the wooden spoon becomes a trend.. Hopefully that's a once off.

I'm not going around hopping up and down because we won the TC. But 4 wins and that silverware was an ok return for how we played all tournament.

As a country we're fierce for getting notions. In 2002 we were all talking about 'why shouldn't we aim to win a football World Cup'. Look at the state of us now. We're a small country and GAA takes a lot of our good sports people.

Around 2011 when you could pick from Ferris, David Wallace (underrated I think), O'Brien and Heaslip for a backrow.

All those rugged Munster forwards we grew up watching, Moss Keane, Lenihan, Claw, Wood, Anthony Foley, Galwey, O'Connell.. etc

God we'd kill for those raw hardy men coming from Munster again. With as the Kiwis say 'Mungrel' in them. POM the last of them

I'm old enough to remember the grim days of Ireland limping through the 5 nations in the 90's and other than the occasional great & memorable win against England it wasn't exactly great times for us. I remember when winning the triple crown in the noughties was a big deal for us when we stepped away from the hard times of the 90's into a new era.

Having said that looking at our more recent form and the extraordinary run weve had over the last few years its a bitter pill to swallow to look at the triple crown with any sort of enthusiasim to be honest.

Anyone ever won a triple crown and come 3rd in the 6nations? Takes a bit of doing

It doesn't really, that's the reason why the 6Ns give the team that wins all their games and extra 3 BPs. It ensures that the team actually tops the table as a team that loses a game but gets more BPs in their wins/loss could be higher in the table than the team that dins all five games without BPs

Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland.

What's the 1st tiebreaker, is it head to head or points difference?

Yes, and would also have happened without Italy (old 5 nations).That's based on points difference, of course. I think the championship was deemed tied in those days.

The only thing Ireland have in common with Wales & Scotland is the size and population of their country…let’s get that clear first, as rugby nations these two don’t belong in the same conversation as Ireland.

Whatever way you want to look at it Ireland totally belong in the category amongst the bigger nations. It’s funny you mention about their dips being “never as pronounce” when Ireland have never had a period as bad as France did until 2020 or as what England have had since 2021…England are still celebrating beating Fiji in 2023, says it all really.

England went to the dogs a bit after the WC in 2003 as well. Naturally form dips when a load of key players retire. As we're going to find out over the next few years. (We're alreay finding out it seems …) England didn't win another 6N after 2003 until 2011. I hope we don't repeat that same sort of history. 😮

Getting everything ship shape in just 2 years seems like a very tall order right now.

Cork only have around the same number of hurling leagues in 150 years

Does that mean Cork give a sht about the league. Same goes for Juventus and the Coppa Italia.

Living in England I don't think I ever heard the words Triple Crown from a rugby fan. It only matters to teams that win nothing else and it's about time we adopted that mentality.

That's true.

I was more referring to the poster and Irish fans like them who still tut when the rest of us don't give a shte about winning a Triple Crown

For years upon years they have all been known as the home nations.

Anyway younger people are different these days. A triple crown was a big deal throughout the history of the nations tournaments.

Nowadays not with winning a championship is considered a massive failure. This on an island with a small population which loses gifted players to the national sport.

There's lots of provincial fans who have no connection with the grass roots of the game, they don't support a club.

You have the fans who hate each other, a soccer thing that was never acceptable in rugby and still isn't wanted by the huge majority of fans.

As time has moved on good things that have happened but there's plenty of bad things too.