Triple Crown (rugby union)

Name

The origins of the name Triple Crown are uncertain. The concept dates to the original Home Nations Championship, predecessor of the Six Nations Championship, when the competition only involved England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Like the modern Grand Slam, the Triple Crown was an informal honour to a team that won the Championship with straight victories.

The first use cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is from Whitaker's Almanack, 1900 (referring to the 1899 tournament): "In their last match at Cardiff against Wales, Ireland won by a try to nothing, securing the triple crown with three straight victories as in 1894." The Irish victory in 1894 was reported as a Triple Crown by The Irish Times at the time and is possibly the first time the phrase was seen in print.

The phrase Triple Crown is also used in a number of other sports.

Trophy history

Until 2006, no actual trophy was awarded to the winner of the Triple Crown, hence it was sometimes referred to as the "invisible cup". Dave Merrington, a retired miner from South Hetton, County Durham, fashioned an aspiring trophy in 1975 from a lump of coal hewn from the Haig Colliery in Cumbria. This has a crown sitting on a four-sided base on which are represented a rose, a shamrock, a thistle and the Prince of Wales's feathers. It is kept in the Museum of Rugby at Twickenham.

For the 2006 Six Nations, the Royal Bank of Scotland (the primary sponsor of the competition) commissioned Edinburgh and London based Hamilton & Inches to design and create a dedicated Triple Crown Trophy. This has been awarded to Triple Crown winning sides since 2006. It has been won seven times by Ireland, four times by Wales and three times by England.

Winners

There has been a Triple Crown winner in 72 of the 129 competitions held from 1883 through to 2025 (twelve years of competition were not played due to the two World Wars). The 2025 campaign was the most recent edition when Ireland won the crown; Ireland also won the most recent Triple Crown prior to 2025, in the 2023 campaign.

Wales and England have both retained the Triple Crown for four consecutive years: Wales (1976–1979) and England (1995–1998). Scotland and Ireland have never won the Triple Crown for more than two successive Championships.

It is possible to win the Triple Crown without also winning that year's Championship. France and Italy may win either the tournament or Grand Slam while a home nation completes the Triple Crown and on rare occasions, it is possible for one home nation to win the Triple Crown, while another claims the Championship title (but not the Grand Slam). To date, the Triple Crown winners who failed to win the Championship are Wales in 1977, England in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2014, and Ireland in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2022 and 2025. The champions were France on each occasion, apart from 2014 when Ireland were Six Nations champions despite losing to Triple Crown winners England, the first instance of a team winning the Triple Crown but losing the overall title to another team eligible for it. The 2025 Championship was the first where the Triple Crown winner was neither first nor second in the Championship, with Ireland finishing below France and England.

Triple Crown winners who succeeded only in sharing the Championship were England in 1954 (lost to France, shared the title with France and Wales) and 1960 (drew with France and shared the title with them), and Wales in 1988 (lost to France and shared the title with them). With the advent of game points, bonus points and points difference, sharing the Championship is no longer possible.

The following table shows the number of Triple Crown wins by each country, and the years and Championship formats in which they were achieved.

italics : did not win Championship ; underlined: shared championship : bold : won Grand Slam

The following table shows Triple Crown winners chronologically.

References

1. Torpey, Michael. (March 2010). "First Triple Crown win". The Clare Champion.