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Triple Crown

Awarded for	winning all matches against the otherHome Nations
Country	England  Ireland  Scotland  Wales
Presented by	Six Nations Rugby
History
First award	1883
Most recent	Ireland (2025)
Website	www.sixnationsrugby.com

Inrugby union, theTriple Crown is an honour contested annually by the "Home Nations" – i.e.England,Ireland,Scotland, andWales who compete within the largerSix Nations Championship. If any one of these teams defeat all three other teams, they win the Triple Crown.

The Six Nations Championship also includesFrance andItaly, but their involvement in the tournament has no influence on the result of the Triple Crown, although it means that the winners of the Triple Crown are not necessarily the winners of the Championship as a whole.

England won the first Triple Crown – although the phrase was not in use at the time – in theinaugural 1883 series of the original rugby unionHome Nations Championship. The latest winners of the Triple Crown are Ireland, who won it by beating Wales at thePrincipality Stadium in the2025 Six Nations Championship.

Traditionally the Triple Crown was an informal honour with no trophy associated with it. However a trophy now exists, which has been awarded to Triple Crown winners since 2006.

The origins of the nameTriple Crown are uncertain. The concept dates to the originalHome 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 theOxford English Dictionary is fromWhitaker's Almanack, 1900 (referring to the1899 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 byThe Irish Times at the time and is possibly the first time the phrase was seen in print.^[1]

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

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 fromSouth Hetton, County Durham, fashioned an aspiring trophy in 1975 from a lump of coal hewn from theHaig Colliery in Cumbria. This has a crown sitting on a four-sided base on which are represented arose, ashamrock, athistle and thePrince of Wales's feathers. It is kept in theMuseum of Rugby at Twickenham.

For the2006 Six Nations, theRoyal Bank of Scotland (the primary sponsor of the competition) commissioned Edinburgh and London basedHamilton & 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 byIreland, four times byWales and three times byEngland.

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). The2025 campaign was the most recent edition when Ireland won the crown; Ireland also won the most recent Triple Crown prior to 2025, in the2023 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 orGrand 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 in1977, England in1997,1998,2002 and2014, and Ireland in2004,2006,2007,2022 and2025. 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 in1954 (lost to France, shared the title with France and Wales) and1960 (drew with France and shared the title with them), and Wales in1988 (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 : didnot win Championship ;underlined: shared championship  :bold : wonGrand Slam

Nation	Total Triple Crowns	Home Nations 1883-1910	Five Nations 1911-1928	Home Nations 1929-1946	Five Nations 1947-1999	Six Nations 2000-2025
England	26	1883,1884,1892	1913,1914,1921,1923,1924,1928	1934,1937	1954,1957,1960,1980,1991,1992,1995,1996,1997,1998	2002,2003,2014,2016,2020
Wales	22	1893,1900,1902,1905,1908,1909	1911		1950,1952,1965,1969,1971,1976,1977,1978,1979,1988	2005,2008,2012,2019,2021
Ireland	14	1894,1899			1948,1949,1982,1985	2004,2006,2007,2009,2018,2022,2023,2025
Scotland	10	1891,1895,1901,1903,1907	1925	1933,1938	1984,1990

The following table shows Triple Crown winners chronologically.

Year	Team	Notes
Home Nations Championship
1883	England	[a]
1884	England	[a]
1891	Scotland	[a]
1892	England	[a]
1893	Wales	[a]
1894	Ireland	[a]
1895	Scotland	[a]
1899	Ireland	[a]
1900	Wales	[a]
1901	Scotland	[a]
1902	Wales	[a]
1903	Scotland	[a]
1905	Wales	[a]
1907	Scotland	[a]
1908	Wales	[a]
1909	Wales	[a]
Five Nations Championship
1911	Wales	[b]
1913	England	[b]
1914	England	[b]
1915–19	Not held due toWorld War I
1921	England	[b]
1923	England	[b]
1924	England	[b]
1925	Scotland	[b]
1928	England	[b]
Home Nations Championship
1933	Scotland	[a]
1934	England	[a]
1937	England	[a]
1938	Scotland	[a]
1940–46	Not held due toWorld War II
Five Nations Championship
1948	Ireland	[b]
1949	Ireland	[a]
1950	Wales	[b]
1952	Wales	[b]
1954	England	[c]
1957	England	[b]
1960	England	[c]
1965	Wales	[a]
1969	Wales	[a]
1971	Wales	[b]
1976	Wales	[b]
1977	Wales	[d]
1978	Wales	[b]
1979	Wales	[a]
1980	England	[b]
1982	Ireland	[a]
1984	Scotland	[b]
1985	Ireland	[a]
1988	Wales	[c]
1990	Scotland	[b]
1991	England	[b]
1992	England	[b]
1995	England	[b]
1996	England	[a]
1997	England	[d]
1998	England	[d]
Six Nations Championship
2002	England	[d]
2003	England	[b]
2004	Ireland	[d]
2005	Wales	[b]
2006	Ireland	[e]
2007	Ireland	[e]
2008	Wales	[b]
2009	Ireland	[b]
2012	Wales	[b]
2014	England	[f]
2016	England	[b]
2018	Ireland	[b]
2019	Wales	[b]
2020	England	[a]
2021	Wales	[a]
2022	Ireland	[d]
2023	Ireland	[b]
2025	Ireland	[e]

• Grand Slam
• Pacific Tri-Nations
• Rugby union trophies and awards
• Six Nations Wooden Spoon
• Tri Nations

Wikimedia Commons has media related toTriple Crown (rugby union).

• "Triple Crown becomes tangiable [sic"], RugbyRugby.com, 25 January 2006
• Official Six Nations Site
• Link to image of Triple Crown TrophyArchived 13 March 2007 at theWayback Machine
• Hamilton & Inches silver craftsmen create a Triple Crown Trophy

• Six Nations Championship trophies
• Ireland–United Kingdom sports relations

• Articles with short description
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• Articles lacking in-text citations from July 2011
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• Commons category link is on Wikidata
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