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Six Nations Rules Explainer: Scoring system, table and bonus points

The Six Nations is an annual rugby union tournament featuring England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales which starts in either late January or early February and ends in March.

First held in 1883, the Championship has moved through several incarnations, with different formats employed depending on their suitability.

The current round-robin formula features five rounds over seven weekends - with a fallow week falling after the first two weekends and then after the middle round of standalone fixtures.

The most recent shake-up came in 2017, when the organisers changed the points scoring system, including introducing bonus points.

Six Nations

How does the Six Nations work?

The Six Nations features a round-robin format, with the countries facing each other once and the team with the most points at any moment sitting top of the table.

The countries trade home advantage on a biennial basis. For instance, in the Calcutta Cup match, England have home advantage in odd-numbered years, while Scotland aren hosts in even-numbered years.

Twickenham will stage the 2025 edition before the pair renew hostilities at Murrayfield in 2026. The same applies for the English and Scots' other fixtures and those of the four other competing countries.

Four of the five rounds feature two matches on Saturday and a third contest either on the previous Friday night or the following Sunday afternoon.

That is until the final day, known as 'Super Saturday', when all three games are held consecutively.

The idea was first introduced in 2004 and has regularly added drama to the final round, with the various trophies, including the Championship outright and potential Grand Slams, often on the line.

How does the Six Nations points system work?

The tournament previously stuck to a formula of two points for a victory and one for a draw, excluding the possibility of bonus points being awarded.

This occasionally led to games petering out, with sides on the wrong side of the result having nothing to play for and those in control of the match lacking any incentive to push on.

That changed in time for the 2017 tournament, where the widely used system of four points for a victory, two for a draw and, again, zero for a defeat was introduced.

As in the club game and other international tournaments, further points were awarded for particular match situations, with a bonus point available for scoring four or more tries and for losses by a margin of seven points or fewer.

Again, just as in domestic competitions, this has kept matches alive, as whether ahead or behind, sides have a reason to push in pursuit of a point that could help move them up the standings or even edge a rival to finish top of the table. 

Because of this, there could have been an, albeit unlikely, possibility that a team wins all of their matches to complete the Grand Slam but finishes behind a rival that has won four times but picked up six bonus points across their five outings.  

However, this is counteracted by the award of three further points being presented to a team that completes a clean sweep.

How are tiebreakers decided in the Six Nations?

The Six Nations often, inadvertently, falls into tiers between those pushing for the trophy, those struggling to find any rhythm and looking to salvage anything from the event and those battling to secure one win and avoid the Wooden Spoon.

However, sometimes teams have identical records and need to be separated for administrative reasons, such as ranking points and prize money.

The countries are primarily ranked on match points, but if two share the same tally, the one with the better points difference (points scored against points against) sits highest in the table.

If multiple sides are still tied, the standings will then favour the country that has scored the most tries - including penalty scores.

In the unlikely situation that these criteria are not enough to separate the teams, they will be given equal rank, which could result in two countries sharing the Championship title.

That outcome has yet to occur since the change of points system in 2017, with the most recent tie coming in 1988, when France beat Wales 10-9 in Cardiff in the final round to prevent the home team from securing the Grand Slam and draw level with their opponents on six points.

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