LONG READ Six Nations 2025: What's good and what's bad from this year's tournament

The dust is settling on another blockbuster Six Nations of ebbs and flows, twists and turns, chaos and controversy.

Champagne stocks are running low in Paris after an Antoine Dupont-less France roared to the title, while Welsh fans might be taking up the bottle for different reasons given the volume of sorrows in need of drowning.

England showed new-found attacking gears and a plethora of jackal fiends, Scotland continue to bash their heads against a glass ceiling of their own construction, and Italy improved again, although they still have a dud performance in them.

Here’s a reflective look at the best – and worst – of Six Nations 2025.

The good

1 – The tries

All 108 of them. A new record by a distance, eviscerating by 17 the previous high-water mark set two years ago.

France led the way with 30 – of which the flying machine Louis Bielle-Barrey – contributed eight – but even stodgy old England threw off the shackles to finish with 25 as Tommy Freeman ticked off one try against every opponent.

There were some crackers. A personal favourite was France’s third from Bielle-Barrey in the emphatic win over Ireland at the Aviva in round four. The power of the French counter-ruck to turn over possession in their own half, the electrical charge provided by Damian Penaud surging into the line, then the flaring pace of Bielle-Barrey to finish the move after his chip and chase.

Defence to attack to try in one blurring blue swish. French genius.

2 – The England poachers

Steve Borthwick suddenly finds himself with a glorious embarrassment of back-row riches at his disposal.

He already knew Tom Curry and Ben Earl were high-end international operators but with Ben Curry emerging to join the gang and Henry Pollock bursting onto the scene, the England coach has poachers coming out of his ears.

Earl and the Curry twins picked off five breakdown steals apiece during the championship, allowing England to top the tournament charts with 25.

No other team reached 20.

3 – Super Saturday

It is an orgy of rugby that is a true test of viewing stamina if you’re in for the hat-trick but when the concluding day of the Six Nations comes together it’s a glorious treat.

Super Saturday is an unfair format in many ways as a final round because the side going last knows exactly what they have to do but the scenario changing with each result makes for great, slow-burn TV.

Okay, this year’s edition wasn’t as mind-bogglingly crazy as 2015 – everyone suspected France would prevail and they did – but Scotland fronted up sufficiently in Paris to ensure there was jeopardy until the last 40 minutes of the championship.

The new broadcasting deal offers the opportunity for ITV and the rest to tweak the scheduling – more Friday night games are a possibility – but they would be crazy to mess with Super Saturday.

4 – Will Stuart

It has taken a while but this was the championship where the Bath tight-head came of age for England.

Stuart’s 50th cap in Wales rounded off a breakout personal campaign.

He has banished the memories of a difficult tour to New Zealand last summer and helped England finally move on from the Dan Cole era.

His scrummaging pays the bills but he can dance too. The step that reduced Italy hooker Giacomo Nicotera to dust at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium was a thing of fluid beauty.

5 – Brexoncello

Italy are an incomplete package but in their high-calibre midfield they do have one area of genuine quality.

The Benetton combination of Juan Ignacio Brex and Tomasso Menoncello delivered some eye-catching flashes together for the Azzurri during the championship.

Between them, they scored four tries, made five line-breaks and beat 21 defenders which was good going playing in its second-worst team.

Actually maybe that should read fifth-best. Italy continue to make progress under Gonzalo Quesada despite the thrashing by France.

The bad

1 – Wales

It wasn’t all down to Warren Gatland as it turned out.

The faint pulse that stirred after Gatland’s mid-tournament exit expired on the final weekend as Wales flatlined against the nation that ought to have brought the best out in them. What emerged instead was a powderpuff display in their own backyard that revealed the grim reality of Wales’s abject situation.

You could only feel sorry for Taulupe Faletau still pouring his heart and soul into a hopeless cause at the age of 34.

He deserves better; so too do the Welsh rugby public.

2 – Eddie Jones

ITV must have thought they had pulled off a real coup when they landed Jones as a Six Nations pundit.

Outspoken and brash, the former England head coach was everything a broadcaster would have wanted in a pitch-side hire but his input proved disappointingly tepid.

In his brief stint back in Six Nations rugby, he just looked very cold.

3 – Duhan’s daydreaming

‘If only’ are the two most overused words in the Scotland rugby lexicon but had Duhan van der Merwe been thinking of Finn Russell as he crossed for the late try against England the Calcutta Cup could still be in residence in Edinburgh.

A couple more metres infield could have made all the difference when it came to the conversion that slipped wide.

Referee Pierre Brousset’s inexplicable interjection to widen the angle still further did not help Russell either but first responsibility has to go to the player. Van der Merwe may have been man of the match but his doziness may well have cost the Scots dearly.

4 – Absent friends

It is a fact of rugby life you are never going to have a full cast list available but this season’s showpiece was denied some major attractions.

The biggest misses were Sione Tuipulotu, the Scotland captain who sat out all of his side’s campaign, and Tadhg Furlong, who was sidelined for all but half an hour of Ireland’s tournament.

It would have been good to have seen Manny Feyi-Waboso and Jonathan Danty plus some more of Dewi Lake too.

The biggest hole in the Six Nations though was for its climax with the absence of European rugby’s one true superstar Antoine Dupont as he awaits surgery on his ACL knee injury.

Get well soon Antoine, the game needs you.

5 – No Georgia

While the Six Nations was dominating the European rugby scene, in the shadows Georgia were winning an eighth successive Rugby Europe Championship.

It was an outcome as predictable as a St Patrick’s Day run on the Guinness reserves.

Richard Cockerill, Georgia’s head coach, may legitimately like to ask how many times they need to win the continent’s second division to have a chance of being admitted to its top tier. Sadly, he probably knows he would be wasting his breath.