The 1972 Five Nations Championship was the 43rd

Five Nations Championship The Six Nations Championship (known as the Guinness Six Nations for sponsorship reasons) is an annual international men's rugby union competition between the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. The current champions ar ...

, an annual

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

competition contested by the men's national teams of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

and

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

, and the 78th since it began as the Home Nations Championship. For the first time since the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, the championship was not completed. Scotland and Wales did not travel to

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

to play Ireland because of escalating political tensions in the wake of

Bloody Sunday Bloody Sunday may refer to: Historical events Canada * Bloody Sunday (1923), a day of police violence during a steelworkers' strike for union recognition in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia * Bloody Sunday (1938), police violence aga ...

. Although the remaining fixtures of the schedule were fulfilled, as both Ireland and Wales won all their matches, neither could claim the title. To fill the gap of the missing two fixtures,

played a

friendly match An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, a scrimmage, a demonstration, a preseason game, a warmup match, or a preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sporting event whose prize money and impact on the player's or ...

in Dublin (in addition to the scheduled match in Paris). In total, nine matches were played between 15 January and 29 April 1972. This was the first Five Nations Championship in which a try was worth four points. This tournament saw France play its last matches at its decades-long home ground, Stade Yves-du-Manoir in Colombes. The opening of the rebuilt Parc des Princes that June saw France move its Five Nations matches to that ground.

Participants

Table

Squads

Fixtures

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Friendly match

References

External links

The official RBS Six Nations Site
* http://stats.espnscrum.com/scrum/rugby/records/team/match_results.html?id=650;type=tournament {{Six Nations Championship Six Nations Championship seasons Five Nations Five Nations Five Nations Five Nations Five Nations Five Nations Five Nations Five Nations Five Nations Five Nations