The 2022 Six Nations tournament kicks off this weekend and after two years of cancellations and empty stadia, the oldest annual rugby championship will be welcomed with open arms by rugby fans around the world.

What makes this year’s competition even more compelling is that five sides stand a genuine chance of walking away with the title come the final weekend in mid-March.

The competition is the first chance for fans to see tier one nation rugby in 2022 and with every conversation about international rugby now legally having to include a reference to ‘building towards the 2023 World Cup’, there’s plenty of theorising and bold predictions to go around.

So let’s take a look at this year’s championship as each of the six teams look to gain momentum as they build towards the 2023 World Cup (tick).

The basics

For those who are new to the Six Nations, it’s a round robin championship that sees the top six European sides play each other across five rounds.

The side with the most points at the end of those rounds lifts the trophy but the thing they all really want is to win the competition unbeaten and, in doing so, claim the Grand Slam. There’s no extra trophy or prize money for going unbeaten but it’s a big thing in the championship.

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Whether teams play each other home or away alternates each year meaning England will travel to Murrayfield this year having hosted Scotland at Twickenham in 2021. This nuance means that every other year a side will have three home games and only have to travel twice. This makes a big difference and in a COVID world with extra hassles from overseas travel, being able to stay in your own country for an extra game is a big advantage.

The competition dates back to 1883 and has evolved over time, first becoming the Five Nations when France joined the home nations in 1910 and then becoming the Six Nations in 2000 when Italy joined.

There has been plenty of debate recently about whether promotion/relegation should be introduced to allow the likes of Georgia to have a pathway to the top table and more recently rumours have circulated that the Springboks would be joining the championship.

But for now these are just rumours and no major changes are planned to the competition for the foreseeable future. Six Nations CEO, Ben Morel has ruled out any major changes to the competition including promotion and relegation. As mentioned in The Roar’s recent Rugby World article, Morel said he was “extremely cautious on the topic” of expansion at the launch event of this year’s competition.

One change that is taking place in the 2022 Six Nations is in the rules governing how packs engage at scrum time.

A new law will be trialled that will ensure that packs have to hold their own weight during the bind phase of the scrum process. They will have to keep a gap between each other and will not be allowed to apply pressure until they are fully engaged.

This has been introduced to prevent previous situations where hookers at the top level of the game were having up to 100kg forced onto their neck and spine as each scrum engaged.

Team overview

While the Rugby Championship has had a pretty consistent look to the top spot with the All Blacks winning seven of the past nine competitions, the Six Nations has had four different winners since 2010.

While Italy have amassed so many wooden spoons that their trophy cabinet looks like they are opening a kitchenware store, each year three or four of the other sides look like they could hold the trophy above their heads come the final weekend and this year is no different.

Wales – current champions who will say goodbye to their crown in 2022
It seems strange to write off a defending champion so categorically but the Spring Tour Tests showed that Wales are going through a tricky period that will continue during the Six Nations.

The team surprised many in 2021 when they won four of their five games and comfortably won their 39th championship title (no other side has won more with England also sitting on 39 titles). Exciting winger Louis Rees-Zammit not only settled into international rugby smoothly but tore defences to shreds as he scored some wonderful tries and the team in general played as one solid unit that made few mistakes and took their chances when they were presented.

However their performances against their Southern Hemisphere rivals in October and November were poor and while they beat the Wallabies, they were losing with 90 seconds to go despite having a man advantage for over an hour.

They were plagued by injury issues then and it looks like injuries will continue to impact Wayne Pivac’s squad in the Six Nations. Experienced legends such as Alun Wynn Jones and George North are in recovery and will hopefully be able to return towards the end of the competition, but with both having been out of the game for a while, can they really be expected to come back into international rugby and dominate?

The split of home and away games plays a very important role in deciding who becomes Six Nations champions and while Wales will play in Cardiff three times this year, one of those is against favourites France and their two away games will see them heading to Dublin and Twickenham.

The Wales side have too many injuries and too many of their players on the wrong side of their peak years to be thought of as potential champions. They will win two or three games and hope for better times ahead.

All hail King Louis ????@LouisReesZammit tore it up when he came on for @gloucesterrugby last night to help them beat Falcons ????

More ➡️ https://t.co/5jjK6QBXeg

Catch the new #GallagherPrem highlights show on @ITVRugby tonight at 23:40 ???? pic.twitter.com/mOucrolOip

— Premiership Rugby (@premrugby) January 30, 2022

France – no more talk about ‘which French team will turn up?’
After two years of taking the runners up spot, France are ready to win the Six Nations in 2022 and after their impressive defeat of the All Blacks a few months ago, it’s hard to bet against them.

They showed in that test not only the ability to slice New Zealand apart with sharp attacking play – something France have always had in their repertoire – but also a defence that strangled the Kiwis and all of this delivered at a consistent and persistent intensity that no team in the world could have coped with.

With three home games in this year’s tournament, including clashes with strong rivals Ireland and England, France definitely have a favourable draw but the engraver should probably wait a little bit longer before they start etching France onto the trophy.

In the past few days, coach Fabien Galthié has been forced to make 11 changes to his original 42 man squad. As a result of both injury and positive COVID tests, Galthié has had to lose seven of his starts from the Test against the All Blacks, including World Rugby Player of the Year, Antoine Dupont and his fly half partner, Romain Ntamack.

French fingers are being crossed across the country that the COVID impacted players will test negative in time to join the squad and play in the opening game. That’s obviously good for Les Bleus, but also for the competition – no one wants to see round after round of coaches scrambling to get 23 players who are fit and have the right passport to take the field.

One of the reasons why France are now such a formidable side is down to defence coach Shaun Edwards. The rugby league legend has been revolutionising rugby union defences since 2001 and after joining France in early 2020, he has had a profound impact on the national side. The power with which they hit the ball runner combined with a new organisational excellence was in full display against the Kiwis and will cause their opponents plenty of problems in this year’s Six Nations.

Assuming the COVID testing goes the right way, then the French will deservedly start as favourites and we should all fully expect to see them going up against England in the final round with a Grand Slam awaiting the winners.

Just @Dupont9A doing Antoine Dupont things

????️ @top14rugby pic.twitter.com/mKBOoK3zIn

— World Rugby (@WorldRugby) October 25, 2021

Ireland – a serious threat to France’s championship plans
If beating the All Blacks is one of the reasons why the French are Six Nations favourites, then Ireland should not be ignored as a serious threat too. Their victory over the Kiwis in Dublin last year was their third win over New Zealand in five Tests and after an average Six Nations in 2021, the side are coming into 2022 with their players in some fine club form to go with their recent international victories.

Questions about whether fly half and skipper Johnny Sexton can still deliver at the tender age of 36 have gone quiet as he guided the team to a successful close to 2021 and has shown good club form at Leinster. Combine that strong current form with his resume – four Heineken Cups, a Grand Slam, three Six Nations titles, two series as a starting British and Irish Lion and a World Player of the Year award – and Ireland won’t be too keen to imagine life without him.

Andy Farrell has been successfully evolving Ireland’s playing style since taking over as head coach in 2019 and if the players can continue to execute his fast paced approach then many opponents will struggle to contain them.

The squad he’s announced does have some uncapped youth amongst it but not as much as other nations and this speaks to the settled group that Farrell has created over the past couple of years and good form of the players in their respective club games so far this season.

The Irish will be glad that they have three home games this championship, however it’s important to note that the two away games are against England and France. If they want to win the whole thing then they are going to have to do it the hard way. These two trips will be the undoing of their title hopes and Ireland will yet again end up in a state of mid table frustration come the end of the Six Nations.

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Throwing it back to Andrew Conway's hat-trick of tries against Japan during our Autumn Nations Series win at @avivastadium ????#TeamOfUs | #IrishRugby pic.twitter.com/rtNlQKhc4K

— Irish Rugby (@IrishRugby) January 26, 2022

England – Eddie Jones’ third regeneration will get close
In a recent interview with the BBC, England coach Eddie Jones described his current England team as the third regeneration that he’s been through since taking over after the 2015 World Cup disaster.

After an unbeaten series of Tests against southern hemisphere rivals late in 2021, this regenerated England looked like they were building nicely for 2022. But a series of injuries to key players has seen the team’s preparations negatively impacted. Skipper Owen Farrell is unavailable for the whole competition and Manu Tuilagi is out injured currently as is Sam Underhill. Joe Marler is down with COVID and Jonny Hill is regarded as touch and go. Courtney Lawes – who was most likely to take over the captaincy from Farrell in the tournament – is still recovering from concussion and not a certainty for round one.

Despite George Ford returning to the squad, it’s believed Marcus Smith will continue to start at fly half as the young Harlequin’s star looks to establish himself as England’s World Cup first choice number 10.

Much has been written about whether Jones will let Smith play his own natural game and when asked in the BBC interview about letting players play to their strengths, the former Wallabies coach explained that he’d learn the importance of not trying to force players to move away from their natural talents.

“I remember mucking up Chris Latham. I tried to get him to be a passer and in doing that I took away his strengths,” shared Jones.

England against France in Paris in the final round might be attracting a lot of attention, but that game will mean much less if England don’t start with a win over Scotland in Murrayfield as they look to reclaim the Calcutta Cup. Edinburgh in February is a cold, wet and challenging trip and this current Scotland side will feel that they are well placed to make it a terrible start to the championship for Jones and his men.

Freddie Steward is one of six nominees for the @autumnnations Player of the Series ????

Vote for Freddie here ???? https://t.co/BuZTwfz0DO pic.twitter.com/ddsn3KOghn

— England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) November 27, 2021

Scotland – could this be a very special year for the Scots?
Scotland have almost stolen the phrase “well it depends which side turns up” from the French having found an ability to play incredible rugby that defies belief in one half and then make silly mistakes and offer weak resistance in the next.

But if they can string together a few of those better halves then they could find themselves in contention for their first Six Nations title. Scotland have usually had some great talent amongst their ranks and this year is no different with names like Stuart Hogg, Finn Russell and Duhan van der Merwe giving defensive coaches nightmares. But the issues in the past have been that the team as a whole hasn’t been able to deliver and consistently beat the better sides.

This year though, the Scottish could pose a real threat. Coach Gregor Townsend has been able to not only improve the overall performances levels of the team but also reduce the gap between Scotland at their best and Scotland at their worst.

They’ve got two crucial games at home against England (round one) and France (round three) and if they get two wins from those matches then they could go into the final two games of the competition in a really good position.

The Scots will win some good games this year but the reality is that they aren’t yet at the point where they can string five of them together in a row and as such they will likely impact the outcome of the tournament, but won’t be winning it themselves.

Stuart Hogg makes history with his 25th try, becoming Scotland's all-time try-scorer ????

Watch #SCOvJPN live on @primevideosport in the UK. pic.twitter.com/m4OcoojhLV

— Scottish Rugby (@Scotlandteam) November 20, 2021

Italy – another season of optimism without the performance
Italy have got another tough Six Nations ahead of them. Despite years of pre competition discussions focusing on glimmers of hope and insistence that the side are playing better and could even win a couple of games, the Azzurri have failed to earn a win or draw in three consecutive seasons and have won the wooden spoon for the past six years.

This year, the glimmer of what could be is brought to fans by new coach Kieran Crowley. The former All Black was appointed in mind 2021 and helped the side win their first Test victory in two years when they beat Uruguay 17-10.

Crowley has had a successful run as coach Benetton and has shown faith in his former club’s players by bringing over 20 of them into the national squad. At least chemistry shouldn’t be a problem!

The ambitions for the Italians this year are the same as usual – not be an easy push over, win a game and start to build a side that can be together for a few years. Oh and if that doesn’t pan out, then there’s always the chance that giving national hero, Sergio Parisse, one final Test cap before he retires from the game this season will give the fans something to smile about.

The legendary Parisse is back fit at Toulon and has held talks with new Italy boss Crowley ????#Italy #SixNations #Toulon
https://t.co/zSSp2mWc5p

— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) December 14, 2021

Top clashes

With five of the top eight sides in the world going head to head in the Six Nations this year, there are plenty of great matches to look forward to. When you add in the history and rivalries that make the championship so special, there are five fantastic rounds of rugby for fans to enjoy.

Round 1
The opening weekend will see two big matches as England travel to Edinburgh having lost to the Scots at Twickenham last year. This is usually a very tight match both in terms of play on the field and score on the board and if we have another wet and windy Scottish afternoon then it could be a real slug fest.

Round 2
France will host Ireland in Paris on 13th February and with both sides in good form and playing exciting styles of rugby, this could be the match of the tournament.

Round 4
England will be relieved that they get to play Ireland at Twickenham this year but that doesn’t mean that Eddie Jones’ men will have an easy afternoon. Victory in this match is crucial to both sides’ hopes of lifting the trophy and if both make it to this point unbeaten then it will be a very tense affair. We could also get to see the hugely experienced Johnny Sexton going head to head with the youthful Marcus Smith – a very tasty match up.

Round 5
A final round where the three matches are played back to back means a great day of rugby. The climax is England travelling to Paris to try and find a way past France. This could well be the match that decides the whole championship and the Six Nations organisers will have their fingers crossed that it lives up to expectation.

How to watch

The Six Nations will be live and exclusive on Stan Sport.

Bold prediction

Ireland, England and France are the real challengers for the title and amongst those three, France look like they will get to celebrate a wonderful Six Nations title, with Ireland second and England in third.

Of course the key for all the sides is that they come through the competition without any more injuries within their squads and play some genuinely good rugby. Now is the time for key partnerships to be getting game time together and strengthening their bond so that the team can build some real momentum towards the 2023 World Cup (double tick!).