What a rich collection of dramatic finishes and quality individual moments to pick through while compiling this list, with a good dollop of mild controversy thrown in there as well. After 25 years of the Six Nations, here are the most memorable moments in the competition’s history.
An honorary mention to Italy’s debut win in their first game in the championship over Scotland in 2000, fuelled by the superb Diego Dominguez scoring 29 points, which narrowly missed out. This is our ranking.
Capuozzo’s Cardiff magic, 2022
Perhaps a hint of recency bias with this one but the way Italy swept to a first win over Wales in Cardiff in 2022 remains quite charming, thanks to a late Edoardo Padovani try created by a wonderful run from the then little-known Ange Capuozzo. Paolo Garbisi adding the conversion before bursting into tears was also delightful – the result ended a 36-game losing streak for Italy in the Six Nations dating back to 2015.
A couple of other notable comebacks could fall into this category: Wales’s response against Scotland in 2010, and Scotland’s recovery from 38-7 down at Twickenham to draw 38-38, but the diminutive Italian’s jaw-dropping run edged them out.
Croke Park anthem, 2007
The significance of God Save the Queen being played at the site of the first Bloody Sunday meant this was bigger than being just a Six Nations fixture.
Lansdowne Road was being demolished in 2007 to make way for the Aviva Stadium, which meant Ireland had temporarily moved to Croke Park, where 14 spectators at a GAA fixture were shot and killed by British forces in 1920.
After all the tension in the build-up, Croke Park stood and the English anthem was met with respectful silence and then polite applause. Ireland won 43-13 that day, which remains their largest-ever win over England.
A great Irish drop goal, 2018
Ireland went through 40 phases – that’s right, 40 – to set up Johnny Sexton’s match-winning drop goal in Paris during the 2018 Six Nations. To do that with the clock in the red requires incredible composure and execution when your legs must feel like cinder blocks.
Actually, which is more impressive: Ireland going through 40 phases to set up a drop goal, or Sexton landing said drop goal from 45 metres out? It was a sensational strike and kick-started what would end up being a Grand Slam tournament for Ireland, their first since 2009.
Which nicely tees up a mention for another great Irish drop goal: Ronan O’Gara’s 2009 strike in Cardiff with two minutes left, nudging Ireland past Wales and towards a first slam since 1948.
Italy fox England with ruck loophole, 2017
Surely the reason why the ‘ref cam’ was invented was so it could capture the confused expressions of Dylan Hartley and James Haskell up close as Romain Poite explained: “I’m sorry; I’m a referee, not a coach.”
Italy came to Twickenham in 2017 and simply refused to form a legal ruck, meaning no offside line and that they could flood into England’s back line and cause chaos, with Danny Care looking around in a panic trying to work out where to pass.
Looking back it was a cute idea, and the reactions from England (who did win 36-15, despite trailing 10-5 at the break) were almost comically furious; “It will kill the game”, and so on. Conor O’Shea, Italy’s coach, playfully labelled it ‘the Fox’.
After Italy ruffled everyone’s feathers with it in February, by July the rule had been tweaked by World Rugby, with Law 16 now determining “a ruck commences when at least one player is on their feet and over the ball which is on the ground”. Still, it was good fun for a moment.
Andy Powell goes golfing, 2010
How else to celebrate a dramatic comeback win over Scotland? Powell, the Wales No 8, borrowed a golf buggy from the Vale Hotel where Wales train and late into the night – well, actually, at 6am – was stopped by police near junction 33 of the M4 in 2010.
Years later, Powell would reveal that he wanted to get some cigarettes, but opted for the golf buggy over the car because “what can they do us for? Speeding?” He was later given a 15-month driving ban.
The greatest Six Nations tackles, various years
Welcome to the tackle Oscars. Naturally after 25 years of competition there are a number of contenders so please, for your consideration, we will start in 2005 with Gavin Henson dump-tackling Mathew Tait. A forgotten fact about that moment: it was Tait’s first touch in Test rugby.
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Next we have Courtney Lawes on Jules Plisson in 2015, a hit immediately deemed fair by the referee Nigel Owens but which also drew the best “ooooh” from a crowd you will hear after Lawes gave Plisson whiplash.
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Onto a tackle which does not get discussed enough. If you give Manu Tuilagi the ball at pace around five metres out the outcome is usually a try. Sam Warburton brilliantly lassoed Tuilagi around his ankles to bring the centre down when a score seemed certain back in 2012.
One moment you'd show the grandkids @samwarburton_?
????️ "I did a super low tackle on Manu Tuilagi. He was going for the line about five metres out...few people stop him from five metres out. Technically, that was probably the best tackle I've ever made."
What an epic tackle! pic.twitter.com/fWPxBbE1gV
— Guinness Men's Six Nations (@SixNationsRugby) June 15, 2020
Next, another brilliant try-saver, this time from Jamie Heaslip in 2015. Everyone expected Stuart Hogg to score after he cut infield past two Irish defenders in Dublin, only for Heaslip to brilliantly punch the ball out as Hogg went for the line.
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And finally, not one but two contenders from some fly-half called Jonny Wilkinson, with this monster tackle on France’s Emile Ntamack in 2000...
...and another on Ireland’s Justin Bishop in England’s 2003 win.
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Have a favourite? Discuss away in the comments.
Wales 30-3 England
The most famous scoreline in Six Nations history? Surely. England went to Cardiff in 2013 with hopes of a first Grand Slam in a decade, while Wales could still retain their title from the previous year if they defeated England by eight points or more.
What followed was an obliteration. It remains Wales’s record win over England and probably will be for some time. Alex Cuthbert’s two tries in nine minutes in the second half capped off his finest game for Wales, while Justin Tipuric was sensational as were so many of Wales’s top players who went on to be British and Irish Lions starters that summer in Australia.
The photo afterwards of a grinning Jonathan ‘Jiffy’ Davies, standing alongside a stern Clive Woodward and Jeremy Guscott, remains priceless.
Bergamasco... the scrum-half? 2009
What’s the worst that can happen? Presumably that was how Nick Mallett convinced his Italian peers when selecting flanker Mauro Bergamasco at scrum-half, not envisioning that the worst would indeed actually happen.
It was the start of the 2009 Six Nations and Italy’s three scrum-halves were injured. Bergamasco had never played there, not even as a schoolboy. Yet their South African head coach Mallett had an idea.
When retelling the story, Bergamasco revealed that he asked Mallett seven times “are you sure?” You would think that by the fourth iteration of that question it might have dawned that this was a bad idea. Safe to say it was a disaster and Bergamasco was replaced at half-time. It should also be noted that Bergamasco was an excellent flanker with over 100 Test caps. But a scrum-half he was not.
Martin Johnson refusing to move, 2003
No offence to the Netflix premieres for Full Contact, but this remains easily the most that rugby has ever cared about a red carpet.
You know the tale by now… England came out at the old Lansdowne Road in 2003 on Ireland’s side of the red carpet and then refused to move, despite pleas to Martin Johnson from stadium officials, leading to Ireland lining up on the grass next to them and then the actual person who the carpet was meant for – the Irish president, Mary McAleese – getting her shoes dirty whilst greeting the Irish players.
Looking back it was all quite silly – no one talks about the poor bit of abandoned red carpet left unused, do they – but Johnson and England took it as an act of defiance and it worked, finally getting over the line after so many Grand Slam blips. As Steve Borthwick said when discussing Johnson and the carpet with Telegraph Sport: “Occasions like that are just fantastic, aren’t they?”
Super Saturday, 2015
The Six Nations finale has thrown up some interesting situations over the years – you may remember England lifting the trophy in their suits in a Dublin hotel in 2011 having missed out on a Grand Slam – but no final day has been more bananas than the end of the 2015 championship.
Ireland had to defeat Scotland by at least 21 points to remain in contention for the title, which they duly achieved by winning 40-10 at Murrayfield. That result meant that England, facing France at Twickenham, had to win by 26 points to snatch the trophy for themselves. And they came incredibly close, scoring a record number of points against France (55) in a bonkers 55-35 game at Twickenham, with the 12 tries in that match tying the all-time Six Nations record.
However it still was not enough, with England falling six points short, meaning Ireland retained their title from the previous year, lifting the trophy in a practically empty Murrayfield. Also, not to forget the first game of the day with Italy against Wales, in which Warren Gatland’s side produced a record away win in that fixture with a 61-20 victory which included a George North hat-trick. Well done if you stayed in the pub all day to watch all three games.
