What’s seldom is wonderful: Why we shouldn’t sniff at a relatively rare Six Nations title

What do Keith Wood, Shane Horgan, Denis Hickie, Simon Easterby, Paul Wallace, Mick Galwey, Jeremy Davidson, Rob Henderson, Eric Miller and Syd Millar all have in common?

Well, perhaps among other things, they’ve all played 40 or more internationals for Ireland, many over a period of a decade or more, and have played for the British & Irish Lions. But none of them ever won a Six Nations Championship title with Ireland.

To this list can be added David Humphreys, Anthony Foley, Girvan Dempsey, Paddy Johns and Kevin Maggs, all of whom have won 50 or more caps without being part of an Irish Championship-winning side.

Plenty of others who starred for Ireland and never received a Five or Six Nations winner’s medal include Eric Elwood, another former captain Dion O’Cuinneagain, Conor O’Shea, Simon Geoghegan, Alan Quinlan, Andy Ward, Jim Staples, Keith Gleeson, Kieron Dawson, Trevor Brenan and so on, and so on.

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Grand Slams are, understandably, the Holy Grail, and Ireland have been fortunate enough to win three of their four to date since 2009, with two in the last six years. There have also been four titles in the last decade, but it hasn’t always been like this.

However Ireland have only won 15 titles, which is one more than Scotland and less than France (18), Wales (28) and England (29). This Irish team are also seeking to become just the third team from this country to retain the championship, the only previous back-to-back titles having come in 1948/49 and 2014/15.

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To put the possibility of Ireland winning just a 16th title further into perspective, there have been plenty of fallow periods too.

There was a 36-year gap between the third and the fourth (in 1935), a 23-year wait between seventh and eighth (in 1974) and a 24-year gap before the 2009 Grand Slam. There were no titles in the 20s, 60s or 90s.

Leaving aside all those who never experienced winning a championship title with Ireland, take the example of Malcolm O’Kelly, one of Ireland’s greatest and most gifted locks. He played 92 times for Ireland and at one point was his country’s most capped player of all time.

He played in ten championships and went on two Lions tours. He was an unused sub in the opening leg of the 2009 Grand Slam, played three minutes of the second match in the Stadio Flaminio, and was dropped by Declan Kidney for the remaining three matches.

Assistant coach Les Kiss dubbed that team a ‘cardiac team’ and the biggest relief of the heart-stopping 2009 Slam was when Ronan O’Gara landed the winning drop goal and Stephen Jones’ ensuing long-range penalty missed the target with the game’s last kick. With that a generation some dubbed ‘golden’ thankfully had that title to show for their efforts.

For the likes of Tommy Bowe, Luke Fitzgerald, Tomás O’Leary, Peter Stringer, Geordan Murphy, Marcus Horan, Jerry Flannery, John Hayes, Donnacha O’Callaghan, Paul O’Connell, Stephen Ferris, David Wallace and Denis Leamy, they at least had one title to show for their efforts, while O’Driscoll and D’Arcy would win a second Six Nations title in 2014.

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Mike Gibson is still regarded as Ireland’s greatest ever player by those who saw him in his prime. He is certainly in the conversation. Gibson played 69 times for Ireland (back when 69 times was a veritable mountain of caps) in four different positions in an international career spanning 15 years.

Gibson played a dozen Tests for the Lions in five different tours, was widely acclaimed as one of the greatest players of all time and was inducted into World Rugby’s Hall of Fame in 2011.

In 15 years, he only ever won one Championship with Ireland, in 1974.

Even then, Ireland lost their first match against France by 9-6 in the Parc des Princes and drew their second, 9-all, at home to Wales before a 26-21 win at Twickenham (when Gibson scored two tries) and a 9-6 win against Scotland at Lansdowne Road left them with a total of five points.

Ireland were idle on the last weekend, when both France and Wales could have overtaken them, but each lost away to Scotland and England. This left France, Wales and Scotland on four points, with England on three.

It was merely Ireland’s eighth outright Championship win, and the only title for the team’s captain Willie John McBride, while the head coach, Syd Millar, never won a Championship in a 12-year international career which included three Lions tours.

As fate would have it, that eighth Irish title in 1974 was 50 years ago today, but there was scant fanfare. In many ways, this fault lies with the four Home Unions, as the Triple Crown (equivalent to a Grand Slam in the original Four Nations) almost superseded winning the title.

Indeed, a trophy for winning the championship was only created in 1993 (albeit the Triple Crown trophy was not created until 2006) and winning the championship has become more of ‘a thing’ in latter years.

Ireland did win the Triple Crown three times in four years from 2004, but by the third of those triumphs in 2007, it had ceased to be a consolation prize. They had finished runners-up in 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2006.

On a gloriously sunny 2007 St Patrick’s Day in Rome, with the ‘oul Celtic Tiger in its pomp, the Stadio Olimpico was awash in green. Ireland led 20-12 at half-time before cutting loose in the third quarter, with tries by Dempsey, Horgan, Hickie and O’Gara, and after one by Marco Bortolami, a second by Hickie. That left Ireland 51-17 to the good deep into stoppage time, which would have set France a testing target to win by 31.

However, in pushing for another try which could have set France a winning target of 38 points, Ireland turned over the ball and Roland De Marigny scored a converted try with the last play of the game. France’s target was down to 24 points.

Hicke recalls: “Even though we had won by 27 points and we didn’t know the maths at the time, I do remember there was a sense in the dressing room and on the bus to the hotel that that was the score which cold cost us the championship.

Hickie and Horgan decided not to watch the game with some team-mates, IRFU committee members and families in the hotel foyer, but went to the swimming pool instead.

Even so, a 76th minute Euan Murray try for Scotland left France 39-19 ahead and Ireland on course for the title. Whereupon, Les Bleus went to the corner with the last play of the game, their backs joined in the lineout drive, which spilled over the line.

Craig Joubert asked Irish TMO Simon McDowell if there was any reason not to award the try, and while there was indeed no evidence not to award the try, nor was there any sign of the ball being grounded by Elvis Vermuelen. But it sealed the title for France.

“Looking back now I absolutely would love to have won a Six Nations,” admits Hickie.

“Clearly we had a good Irish team at the time, although we seem off the pace in comparison to the heights that the team have scaled recently, but that’s the way it should be. And I think a championship would have been a god return for that group of players, but it wasn’t to be, and we had our chances, particularly against France that year.”

There have been another seven Irish titles since 1974 (including the Grand Slams of 2009, 2018 and 2023), but only twice have Ireland been able to seal the deal at home on the final day – in 1985 and last year. In between they have won the title in Cardiff, Paris, Edinburgh and London.

Take today’s opponents too for some added perspective. They haven’t won a title since 1999 and last won a Triple Crown in their 1990 Grand Slam.

Multiple Irish title winners are a recent but rare phenomenon. Rob Kearney and Rory Best were each part of four championship wins.

Peter O’Mahony, Robbie Henshaw, Conor Murray, Cian Healy and Iain Henderson are all aspiring to win a fifth title today, having been part of the final day win in Paris in 2014 and the dramatic events of Murrayfield in 2015, as well as the Grand Slams of 2018 and last year.

Henderson describes 2014 and 2015 as “absolutely brilliant”, adding: “Two different scenarios. One winning it and one on points difference, and that was huge. Hopefully this weekend it will be known immediately what the craic is once the game is over.

“The enjoyment we got from those first two was massive. I was actually with Chris Henry last weekend. He was over in London playing in the Legends game and we were reminiscing about the times we had afterwards and how different the squad is now.

“There are only a handful of us still here now and we were chatting to the lads this week about how much of a privilege it is to be in a side which has an opportunity to win a championship.

“Obviously there’s a huge amount of disappointment about not being able to win a Grand Slam but there are players all over Europe who would bite your hand off for a shot at the Six Nations Championship. So, we’ve got to realise we’re in an incredibly privileged position and not to let it pass us by this weekend and really go after it.”

Easterby, now in his tenth Championship campaign as an Irish assistant coach, has been involved in the last three Irish championship wins but in nine attempts as a player never won one title, his last campaign in 2008 (like Dempsey and Horgan) having come a year before the 2009 breakthrough.

While he “won quite a few Triple Crowns”, Easterby admits he’d love to have won a title.

“We came close a number of times but I certainly wouldn’t be sniffing at winning another one.

“It’s crazy to think we went so long without one and then we’ve had reasonably good success over the last 15 years, but they’re huge,” he says of winning the title. “It’s what we play the game for and what we’re involved in the game for. It’s creating memories and ultimately wining things.

“We’re still hugely driven by winning silverware and winning back-to-back championships would be a massive thing for us to do. The Grand Slam is gone, but the Six Nations title holds a massive amount of credit for what we want to achieve.

“Unfortunately the Triple Crown is off the cards, and it’s something that they [Scotland] can win as well, so it creates that double edge. They’ve got a huge amount to play for as well. This is a massive game.”

For those Irish supporters fortunate enough to be among the 50,000 capacity this evening, this could be an opportunity to celebrate something rare. But if we’ve become an entitled little rugby island it certainly doesn’t suit us. For if history has shown us anything, it is that Ireland winning back-to-back championship titles is to be celebrated.

What’s more, back-to-back titles would have an additional carrot next season, for in the entire history of the championship no country has ever won three outright titles in succession.

Ireland’s outright Champions

(Home Nations)

1894

1996

1899

1935

(Five Nations)

1948 (plus Grand Slam)

1949

1951

1974

1982

1985

(Six Nations)

2009 (plus Grand Slam)

2014

2015

2018 (plus Grand Slam)

2023 (plus Grand Slam)