Ireland crowned Six Nations champions after wild roller-coaster ride
Joe Schmidt’s side complete back-to-back championships to confirm position as northern hemisphere’s top team heading into RWC
Please click on the link to view a gallery of the best photos from the final round of the Six Nations.
Joe Schmidt called it a “roller-coaster ride” but after the ups and down of a dramatic denouement day in the 2015 Six Nations Championship Ireland’s head coach and his players were left clutching the trophy.
Having beaten Scotland 40-10 at Murrayfield, equalling their record margin against them, captain Paul O’Connell and the rest of the Ireland players had to wait to see whether England could overtake them at the top of the table with a winning margin of 26 points against France at Twickenham.
England’s 55-35 victory confirmed Ireland as champions for the second successive season, their first back-to-back successes since 1948-49, O’Connell and this teammates returning to the Murrayfield pitch to collect the trophy in front of the 5,000 celebrating Irish supporters who had stayed to watch the drama from Twickenham on the big screen.
“I’ve never received a trophy in such bizarre circumstances,” said veteran lock O’Connell, who scored the first of Ireland’s four tries – his first for his country since 2006 and his first in the Six Nations for 10 years.
“It’s so strange. In some ways it feels better than last year.”
Spare a thought for England. They probably deserved a share of the spoils but there’s incredible relief in our camp
Twelve months ago the Irish snatched the trophy from England’s grasp with a victory in the final match of the championship against France in Paris, and in managing to retain it Schmidt has now won four major prizes in the four seasons he has been coaching in Ireland – two Heineken Cups with Leinster and now two Six Nations crowns
