Six Nations returns and so does Antoine Dupont but 'beautiful tournament' is in flux amid TV deal uncertainty

Escaping to the sun is all the rage these days. Ireland, the defending champions, are in the Algarve while Steve Borthwick’s England are on the Costa Brava.

Wales and Scotland are also planning winter breaks but not until the tournament has got under way. Warren Gatland’s squad will hole up in Nice in between their first two matches, away to France and Italy, and the Scots will head to their usual haunt of Oliva Nova, close to Valencia, to prepare for the round three clash with England.

The attractions are obvious. International coaches have limited time to work with their players so the chance to get away to try to meld a team is hugely important. There are fewer distractions and the climate is invariably better than back home.

The tournament is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and a rugby storm of its own is brewing in the background. The sport has seemed somewhat dissatisfied with its lot in recent seasons and has been searching for new markets, fresh investment, better broadcasting deals.

CVC, a Jersey-based private equity firm, owns a stake in the Six Nations which is equal to that of each competing union. The deal was worth £365 million but it’s not immediately clear to see how that money has benefited the game other than to inflate wages. Three top-flight English clubs have gone down the tubes since the 2021 agreement and a number of unions, including Scotland’s, are posting losses in the tens of millions.

Netflix was welcomed on board with open arms but after two seasons of Six Nations: Full Contact, the docudrama is being ditched. More worryingly, the joint deal with BBC and ITV will expire after this year’s championship and there is a real danger that the Six Nations will disappear from free-to-air television. Tournament sources have tried to douse those fears, hinting that having more night matches could persuade the traditional terrestrial broadcasters to stay on board. But is that what supporters want?

It comes down to the thorny issue of trying to strike a balance between mass TV exposure and extracting as much money as possible and the pay-TV networks certainly have deeper pockets. The Five/Six Nations has always been the jewel in rugby’s crown and you would fear for the consequences if it was no longer available to watch for free.

For a sport which only turned professional 30 years ago, conversations about money still seem a little unseemly. Over at the 2025 Six Nations launch in Rome last week, the organisers preferred to dwell more on the tournament’s storied history. Sepia-tinted team groups and wall-mounted TV screens showing classic matches with Bill McLaren commentary decorated the entrance to Spazio Field, venue for an event which attracted the coach and captain of each competing nation.

Antoine Dupont is the smallest of the six skippers but his presence is immense. After missing last year’s Six Nations to prepare for the Olympic Games in Paris, where he duly helped France win sevens gold, the scrum-half has returned to 15-a-sides. He’s missed it and France certainly missed him as they finished second after failing to beat Ireland and Italy.

“It was not easy to watch the guys on TV but I had other objectives,” he said in Rome. “I’m happy to be back in this beautiful tournament.”

Fabien Galthie called him “an immense player”. “He was voted world player of the year two years ago and is doing very well for his club and was an Olympic champion at the last Games so, yes, he has an aura, so it’s extremely important for us to have him back,” said the France coach.

Coming on the back of their failed bid to win a home World Cup in 2023, Galthie knows the pressure is on but the coach insists that he and the players welcome it and that it shows the growth in the sport which he now says is more popular than football in France. It is a startling claim, particularly given the relatively recent success of the soccer team.

“I do feel the expectation from the public,” he said. “It puts some pressure on us but it’s a good pressure and we quite enjoy the pressure. Yes, they have become very demanding but they have grown as well. We’re now more popular than football.”

France kick things off in Paris on Friday night against Wales and les Bleus are marginal second favourites to win the tournament, just behind Ireland. The champions are going for their third title in a row, something that has never been done in the Six Nations era. They are without Andy Farrell who has been seconded to the Lions ahead of the summer tour and the responsibility of leading the team now rests with his assistant, Simon Easterby.

“No pressure, then!” he joked at the launch event.

Easterby has been a part of the Ireland coaching set-up since 2014 but this is his first head coaching role since his time in charge of Scarlets more than a decade ago. He did lead the Emerging Ireland team on two successful tours of South Africa, in 2022 and 2024, and some of those players are stepping up to the full side, most notably Sam Prendergast who is expected to start at 10 when the Irish open their campaign at home to England on Saturday.

Alongside the new blood is an experienced core and 11 of the players in the squad are aged 32 or older, including veteran trio Cian Healy (37), Peter O’Mahony (35), and Conor Murray (34). A tournament too far or exactly the sort of gnarled warriors needed to create history? We shall see.

For Scotland, Ireland remain their nemesis. The only Six Nations team they have failed to beat in Gregor Townsend’s seven-and-a-half year reign and a big part of their downfall at the last two World Cups.

Injuries have conspired against Scotland in the build-up to the tournament. The absence of Sione Tuipulotu is a savage blow given the national captain’s form and the loss of Scott Cummings and Dylan Richardson has also hit hard.

Townsend speaks regularly about Scotland’s improved strength in depth and now it will be tested. Stafford McDowall, a Glasgow Warriors team-mate of Tuipulotu’s, is likely to replace him at 12 while Jonny Gray could end a near two-year Test exile by stepping into the second-row void left by Cummings. Gray, who was sidelined for 18 months with a knee issue, has been reborn at Bordeaux-Begles where he is part of a squad riding high in both the Top 14 and Investec Champions Cup.

Scotland have home advantage in three of their first four matches and must make it count. They start against Italy at Murrayfield on Saturday and then it’s Ireland in Edinburgh in round two followed by England away, Wales at home and a showdown with France in Paris in the final match of the championship.

The Scots will head to Twickenham on February 22 looking to inflict an unprecedented fifth successive defeat on England. Borthwick, under increasing pressure, knows he needs to turn things around after a dismal autumn which saw his side lose three in a row at HQ, to New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. The coach claimed his players were not fit enough for Test rugby in the aftermath and changes to the backroom team have been made.

Borthwick’s big dilemma will be whether to stick with the inventive Marcus Smith of Harlequins at fly-half or hand over the reins to Fin Smith, the playmaker who steered Northampton Saints to Premiership success last season and who just happens to be the grandson of former Scotland and Lions prop Tom Elliot.

England have not won the Six Nations since Eddie Jones led them to the title in 2020, the last time they beat Scotland, and the irascible Aussie will be a pundit for ITV during this year’s renewal which should add piquancy. Despite their travails, they are still ahead of Scotland in the betting. England are third favourites at 9-2, with Townsend’s side 13-2.

Wales, meanwhile, are available around 70-1, an incredible price for a side who were champions as recently as 2021. The decline has been stark and they go into this season’s first game in Paris on the back of a run of 12 defeats in a row, an unwanted record that has plunged the sport in Wales into crisis.

Warren Gatland, their veteran coach, says they have nothing to lose. “There is no expectation on us,” he said. “People are writing us off, but I have said this before, you write us off at your peril. We have to create some confidence and self-belief within our group. We need to create a siege mentality.”

Closing the roof at the Principality Stadium will help, as will the return of experienced campaigners Taulupe Faletau, Josh Adams, Liam Williams and Dafydd Jenkins. They are not at home until they host Ireland in round three and they will also take on England in Cardiff.

Italy’s renaissance last season left Wales with the wooden spoon and the Azzurri deserved better than their fifth-place finish. They beat Scotland and Wales in their final two games after drawing with France, and they also came close to an historic first win over England in their opener. It was a highly impressive first season in charge for Gonzalo Quesada, their Argentine coach, but his captain, Michele Lamaro, has warned that they may now be marked men.

“There are a lot of expectations on us, now the other teams are looking at us differently,” said the Benetton flanker. “But it will be a different tournament, a new year with a different team.”

There are five new faces in a squad which averages only 25 caps per player. Tommaso Allan, the Edinburgh-educated former Scotland Under-20 stand-off, is their most senior player with 79 caps.

As always, there has been some pre-tournament tinkering with the rules. The Six Nations will adopt the 20-minute red cards that were trialled during the autumn, although referees can still send a player off permanently for deliberate and dangerous acts of foul play.

Another autumn experiment was mic’d-up refs explaining important decisions to spectators and that will continue along with steps to speed up the game. Kickers will have 60 seconds to take conversions, while scrums and lineouts must be formed within 30 seconds.

A global law trial designed to protect scrum-halves at the base of rucks, mauls and scrums will also come into effect.

It should all add to the mix. Netflix may be stepping away but there remains plenty of juicy storylines in a competition which retains its allure, even after 142 years.