Triple Crown (rugby union)
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In rugby union, the Triple Crown (Irish: An Choróin Triarach; Scottish Gaelic: An Crùn Trìblite; Welsh: Y Goron Drifflyg) is an honour contested annually by the four national teams of the British Isles who compete within the larger Six Nations Championship: England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. If any one of those four teams wins all its games against the other three, they win the Triple Crown.
The Six Nations Championship also includes France and Italy, 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 the inaugural 1883 series of the original rugby union Home Nations Championship. The latest winners are Wales, who have beaten Ireland, Scotland and England in the 2012 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.
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[edit] 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 the team that went undefeated to win the Championship.
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 phrase Triple Crown is also used in a number of other sports.
[edit] 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 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 a silver dish, called the Triple Crown Trophy, which is awarded to the Triple Crown winner.
[edit] Winners
There has been a Triple Crown winner in 63 of the 116 competitions held from 1883 through to 2012. (12 competitions were cancelled due to the two World Wars.)
Only two teams have achieved the Triple Crown in four consecutive years: Wales (1976–1979) and England (1995–1998). No other teams have won the triple crown more than twice in a row.
Unlike the Grand Slam, the Triple Crown winners are not necessarily the tournament winners, since France or Italy – or even another of the home nations – could outperform them within the Championship as a whole. To date, the Triple Crown winners who failed to win the Championship are Wales in 1977, England in 1997, 1998 and 2002, and Ireland in 2004, 2006 and 2007 (the champions being France on each occasion). Triple Crown winners who succeeded only in sharing the Championship were England in 1954 and 1960, and Wales in 1988.
The following table shows the number of Triple Crown wins by each country, and the years in which they were achieved.
 England |
23 | 1883, 1884, 1892, 1913, 1914, 1921, 1923, 1924, 1928, 1934, 1937, 1954, 1957, 1960, 1980, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2003 |
 Wales |
20 | 1893, 1900, 1902, 1905, 1908, 1909, 1911, 1950, 1952, 1965, 1969, 1971, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1988, 2005, 2008, 2012 |
 Ireland |
10 | 1894, 1899, 1948, 1949, 1982, 1985, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009 |
 Scotland |
10 | 1891, 1895, 1901, 1903, 1907, 1925, 1933, 1938, 1984, 1990 |
The following table shows Triple Crown winners chronologically.
[edit] See also
- Six Nations Wooden Spoon
- Grand Slam
- Six Nations Championship
- Tri Nations
- Pacific Tri-Nations
- Calcutta Cup
- Millennium Trophy
- England national rugby union team
- Ireland national rugby union team
- Scotland national rugby union team
- Wales national rugby union team
- Rugby union trophies and awards
[edit] Notes and references
[edit] External links
- "Triple Crown becomes tangiable (sic)", RugbyRugby.com, 25 January 2006
- Official Six Nations Site
- Link to image of Triple Crown Trophy
- Hamilton & Inches silver craftsmen create a Triple Crown Trophy
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