Women’s Six Nations 2025: England win fourth Grand Slam but is it time for format change?

In 2022, the tournament fixture list changed so England and France were guaranteed to play each other in the final round.

This differs to the men’s Six Nations, won by France in March, which has a different fixture schedule every year.

The idea was to keep Grand Slam interest alive by holding back the likely title decider.

Success has come, with final fixtures between Ireland, Scotland, Italy and Wales also adding interest as they battle for places and to avoid the Wooden Spoon.

But the competitiveness of their games against the top two is a growing concern.

France, the last team to beat England in the Six Nations in 2018, have been less dominant, but have still recorded a full house of wins against the other teams in each of the past four championships.

England used 34 players this campaign and despite regularly rotating scored 33 tries and conceded only five before the Grand Slam decider.

A reason for the gulf in quality comes from the fact England awarded 28 full-time professional contracts in 2019 and that level of investment left the other nations behind.

Wales began handing out deals at the start of 2022, followed by Ireland in August 2022, while Scotland announced their professional plans at the end of that year.

Before the 2023 Six Nations, Italy announced 22 professional contracts had been given out to their players.

Scotland defeated Ireland on Saturday to end their campaign on a high, with Ireland’s highlight coming in a hammering of Italy. Italy ran France close and finished with a thumping win over Wales to show signs of improvement.

Under new head coach Sean Lynn, Wales lost every game to pick up the Wooden Spoon, but will be hopeful of improvement after the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) this month confirmed a revamp of its top women’s teams to develop the pathway and depth of talent.

When asked on the BBC’s Rugby Union Weekly how long it would take for a different winner of the Six Nations, Scotland head coach Bryan Easson replied: “It will take time but I genuinely believe someone else will eventually win it.”

His side suffered heavy defeats by both England and France, who have much wider player pools because of investment into their domestic leagues, with the Premiership Women’s Rugby league going from strength to strength.

“The gap will get closer,” added Easson. “But it will be a little bit longer than everybody expects in terms of professionalism.

“We’ve only been professional now for 18 months. Wales, Ireland, Italy, and ourselves are all pretty much in the same boat.”