Six Nations 2026: A championship of records, milestones and mayhem

A championship heralded as the best-ever the Six Nations era was fittingly decided by the last act of the final game by a player accustomed to breaking records, Frenchman Thomas Ramos.

The ever-reliable Ramos and regular back-three partners, wings Louis Bielle-Biarrey and Theo Attissogbe, played every single minute of the title-winning campaign, although one 80-minute shift was as a stand-in at fly-half for the injured Matthieu Jalibert in the game against Italy.

Ramos scored regularly throughout, getting into double figures for each of the rounds on his way to accumulating 74 points, 21 points more than his nearest rival Finn Russell, and with a success rate in front of goal of 87.5%, the best in the competition.

It was the fourth championship in a row that Ramos had finished as top points scorer in the Six Nations, becoming the only player to do so. Ramos also topped the points charts with 71 in 2025, following previous hauls of 84 in 2023 and 63 in 2024. Ronan O’Gara achieved the feat in three consecutive championships (2005-07).

Ramos was far from alone, though, in raising the bar to historic highs. Individual and team and match records tumbled throughout a championship condensed from seven weeks into six, starting with the opening fixture, the first to be played on a Thursday night.

France’s 36-14 win at home to Ireland, the 50th of Fabien Galthie’s reign, was perhaps one of the more unremarkable matches, statistically anyway. But in surging into a 22-0 half-time lead. Les Bleus, the dark version not the pale blue one which caused so much confusion on the final evening, had inflicted upon Ireland their biggest half-time deficit in two decades of championship rugby.

Then it was onto Rome, when Scotland looked all washed up in monsoon-like conditions. Italy’s 18-15 win was their first in the opening round of the championship since 2013.

England’s 48-7 win over Wales – their highest opening round score in 22 years – was entirely expected given the respective form of the sides but no one could have envisaged Wales losing four players to the sin-bin (Nicky Smith, Dewi Lake, Ben Thomas and Taine Plumtree) – the joint most any team has been shown in a Six Nations game (also Italy v France in 2002).

And in that game, Henry Arundell became the youngest player to score a Six Nations hat-trick for England with only Brian O’Driscoll, George North and Blair Kinghorn scoring one at a younger age than his 23 years and 91 days.

For round two, Italy headed to Dublin bidding to achieve back-to-back championship wins for only the third time in history (also 2007 and 2024) and hoping to end their wretched run in Dublin. And they were on course for a first-ever Six Nations away victory over Ireland, when they led 10-5 at the interval, the first time they’ve been ahead at the break against the men in green in championship history.

Alas for the Azzurri, it was not to be, Ireland recovering to outscore them 15 points to three in the second half. Ireland’s 20-13 win was their smallest margin of victory over Italy at the Aviva Stadium, with the 16-11 win in 2008 being played at Croke Park.

“The atmosphere from start to finish was incredible.” 💙

Huw Jones speaks after the Calcutta Cup victory.#AsOne pic.twitter.com/k7IMCFYcTz

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— Scottish Rugby (@Scotlandteam) February 14, 2026

Scotland won the Calcutta Cup back from England, with a 31-20 victory at Murrayfield, the first match in seven where there was a double-digit points margin between the teams.

Their highest winning score against England in Six Nations history was a fine way for Gregor Townsend to celebrate his 100th Test as Scotland head coach, the only British-born head coach to achieve a century of Tests in charge.

Huw Jones’ brace saw him become Scotland’s leading all-time try-scorer in the Men’s Six Nations (18).

In suffering their first Six Nations round two defeat since 2009, England’s 12-match winning run had come to a crushing halt.

Cardiff was the final destination in round two, and Wales’ woes continued with a 54-12 defeat to France. It was Les Bleus’ record score against Wales, eclipsing the 51-0 victory at Wembley in 1998.

Round three began with two away wins, Ireland’s 42-21 victory over England and Scotland’s less convincing 26-23 win over Wales. It was Ireland’s biggest-ever win over England at Twickenham, having surpassed the 17-point victory they achieved in 2022.

France, meanwhile, were slightly flattered by a 33-8 scoreline against Italy in Lille the following day.

The first try of the match was scored by French flyer, Louis Bielle-Biarrey, who became the first player to score in eight consecutive rounds of the championship when he latched onto Antoine Dupont’s kick. It’s a record he would extend to 10 with further tries against Scotland and England in rounds four and five.

Round four began on Friday night with Ireland’s 27-17 win over Wales, a result that was largely unremarkable other than for the fact that Wales loose-head, Rhys Carre, ran the ball in from 30 metres out and became the first prop to score tries in three consecutive rounds in Six Nations history, and only the fifth in Test match rugby overall.

Rhys “The Rocket” Carré talks us through THAT try against Ireland! 🚀🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿#GuinnessM6N #Since1883 pic.twitter.com/ZFEDq1Dtmk

— Guinness Men’s Six Nations (@SixNationsRugby) March 11, 2026

What followed next was scarcely believeable. Scotland’s 50-40 victory over previoously unbeaten France was the most points they’d ever scored againt Les Bleus, smashing the previous record of 36 in 1999.

Darcy Graham got Scotland off to a flying start with the first try after five minutes, his 36th in a Scotland jersey, and in doing so edged ahead of Duhan van der Merwe at the top of the national team’s all-time scoring charts, before adding another to his record tally.

It was also the first time France had found themselves behind on the scoreboard in the championship in what transpired to be the highest-scoring match in the history of the fixture.

Italy then downed England 23-18 in Rome, their first win over England in 33 attempts, to complete a remarkable day of Six Nation’s rugby. Leonardo Marin’s 72nd-minute matchwinner was Italy’s first in the second half of matches four games into the competition.

Super Saturday kicked off with the Triple Crown decider between Ireland and Scotland in Dublin, with the hosts extending their winning run over their Celtic cousins to 12 matches with a 43-21 victory. It was Ireland’s 15th Triple Crown and ninth of the Six Nations era.

Wales’ 15-match losing run in the Six Nations, which stretched for 1,099 days, ended when they beat Italy 31-17 in Cardiff, having raced into a 31-0 lead.

And then, to top everything that had come before, England scored more points against France in France than they had ever done before but still ended up slipping to a fourth straight loss for the first time in the Six Nations era.

During the helter-skelter 48-46 win for France, the tournament’s try-scoring record was broken for the second year in a row, with the final tally standing at 111. France contributed 30 of them, equalling the record they’d set in 2025.

One of the six tries they managed against England was a penalty try, after Ellis Genge illegally pulled down a driving maul at the start of the second half. Genge was duly yellow-carded by referee Nika Amashukeli, England’s ninth card of the championship, matching the Italian record set in 2002.

Bielle-Biarrey, quelle surprise, was once again in the headlines, this time outdoing even himself by becoming the first French player since World War Two to cross for four tries in a match.

It meant he surged ahead of his teammate, Attissogbe, to finish the tournament on top of the try-scoring charts with nine, breaking the record of eight he’d set the previous year.

As France celebrated their third Six Nations triumph in the past five years, Steve Borthwick’s side were left to contemplate finishing fifth in the 2026 table, matching the historic lows of 2018 and 2021.