The 2021 Women's Six Nations Championship was the 20th series of the

Women's Six Nations Championship The Women's Six Nations Championship, known as the Guinness Women's Six Nations for sponsorship purposes, is an international rugby union competition featuring six European women's national teams. It started in the 1995–96 season as the Home ...

, an annual

women's rugby union Women's rugby union is a full contact team sport based on running with the ball in hand. The same laws are used in men's rugby union with the same sized pitch and same equipment. Women's rugby has become popular recently. These days, women's r ...

competition featuring

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

and

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

. The format for the 2021 tournament was changed from the traditional eight-week round-robin format to a four-week format consisting of two pools of three teams with a final, inspired by the format of the

Autumn Nations Cup The Autumn Nations Cup was a rugby union competition held in November and December 2020 in place of the usual Autumn rugby union internationals, Autumn internationals series typically held in the same period each year, as many teams were avoidin ...

, which replaced the 2020 Autumn Internationals. The tournament was held from 3 to 24 April 2021. As not all teams played each other, the

Grand Slam Grand Slam or Grand slam may refer to: Games and sports * Grand slam, winning category terminology originating in contract bridge and other whist card games Athletics * Grand Slam Track, professional track and field league Auto racing * ...

and Triple Crown were not contested.

Background and format

Traditionally, the

is run concurrently with the men's tournament. However, in January 2021, the 2021 Women's Six Nations Championship was postponed due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, which caused travel and time restrictions issues due to qualification of the 2021 Rugby World Cup needing to be completed before the

tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concen ...

starting in September. Most of the players have jobs outside of rugby, and some players are

key worker A key worker is a worker in an occupation given preferential treatment by government policy. They may be exempted from rules which apply to the general population or prioritized for the receipt of benefits. Reasons for preferential treatment ...

s. This, combined with national lockdowns and the need for COVID-19 testing, made it more difficult to schedule the matches during the pandemic. On 3 February, it was announced that the 2021 Women's Six Nations Championship would take place between 3 and 25 April, in a condensed format. The six teams were split into two pools of three teams. Each team played the other two teams in their pool, with one match at home and one away. Each team had one bye weekend. The winners of the two pools met in the final, as did the two second and third-placed teams from each pool. The team in Pool A hosted regardless of who performed better in their pool, and the winner of the play-off between the two first-ranked sides won the tournament. The format is similar to the 2020 men's

. Provisional fixture lists were also announced on 3 February, and the venues and kick-off times were announced on 23 March.

Pool stage

Pool A

Fixtures

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Pool B

Fixtures

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Finals

5th/6th place

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3rd/4th place

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1st/2nd place

Final classification

Statistics

Top points scorers

Top try scorers

References

External links

The official Six Nations Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Women

Women A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

2021 rugby union tournaments for national teams 2020–21 in Irish rugby union 2020–21 in English rugby union 2020–21 in Welsh rugby union 2020–21 in Scottish rugby union 2020–21 in French rugby union 2020–21 in Italian rugby union

Six 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics A six-sided polygon is a hexagon, one of the three regular polygons capable of tiling the plane. A hexagon a ...

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

Six Nations Championship (women) Six Nations Championship (women) Six Nations Championship (women)