In February 2000, the newcomers surprised Scotland and a quarter-century of highlights remind us of the tournament’s enduring power
Italy celebrate victory over Scotland on their Six Nations debut, winning 34-20 in Rome in 2000. Photograph: David Rogers/Getty Images
The year 2000 was also when Ireland picked a skinny kid called Brian O’Driscoll at outside centre, only just out of Blackrock College. He scored a hat-trick in Paris while Scott Quinnell became the first player in the tournament to be sent to the sin-bin after he smashed head-high on Christophe Lamaison with a tackle so late it might have been scheduled by LNER.Brian O’Driscoll races clear of the defence to score the second of his three tries in Ireland’s 27-25 victory over France in March 2000.
There were three grand slams in this era, one for Martin Johnson’s Orcs in 2003, a couple for Fabien Galthié’s fabulous French either side of it, and the biggest worry was that the tournament was going to become a two-team competition.You would have got long odds, then, on the likelihood that England would win one grand slam in the next 21 years.
There was another grand slam, for Thierry Dusautoir’s 2010 side and then diddly-squat for more than a decade, when the game there seemed to be in a perpetual shambles. France were flat last in 2013 and stuck in the bottom three seven years out of eight in the 2010s.Thierry Dusautoir celebrates with his teammates after France defeated England 12-10 in the final round of the 2010 Six Nations to capture their first grand slam since 2004 and ninth overall.
They took their time but it was Ireland, in the end, who got professionalism right. They have won the title seven times in the past decade, which is as many as they managed in the previous 50 years of playing the Five Nations.Top 10 point scorers since the start of the Six Nations 2000-24
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