The Women’s Six Nations has got off to a flying start after two rounds that have seen record crowds in multiple games.
As the crowds grow, there is only one thing that has been questioned is the competition and competitiveness of some of the fixtures.
England have won each version of the competition since 2019.
How could an expanded Six Nations work?
The current Women’s Six Nations is a copied format of the men’s tournament. There has been discussion for many years of the need to involve teams like Georgia in the top tier of the tournament. Relegation in international rugby for either the men’s or women’s Six Nations would be disastrous for these countries.
I think expanding the Six Nations competition to a 10-team competition could be amazing for its success. I would keep it with the same number of games, with five for each team, in this time period. It should be a 2 pool competition with five teams in each pool. The teams in each pool would be determined by World Ranking position at the end of the November tests. However, I would still keep it as a northern hemisphere competition.
I would invite Spain, who have won the Rugby Europe Championship nine times in a row. Up until 2007, Spain was also a part of the Women’s competition as they were higher ranked than Italy.
In the World Cup in 2025, they lost by 16 to Ireland, which would put them in line with teams at the lower end of the competition already.
To add to the competition at the top of the tournament, I would add Canada and the USA, who are currently second and eighth in the World Rankings, respectively. Canada would offer elite competition for England.
This would then leave one space for a qualification team from within Europe. This would also a lower ranked team who is in the best form to enter the competition.
In the final round, the top team from each pool could play each other in a grand final, and the two second-placed teams would play each other, and so on.
