Age-old Six Nations well able to embrace the madness of modernity

No-one likes events like a Six Nations launch, no-one gets everything they want, but everyone gets something.

The launch of the 2026 Six Nations took place in Edinburgh on Monday. Pic: Ross MacDonald/Sportsfile

The Six Nations likes to trade on its history, its tradition and the sheer simplicity of the same sides indulging in the same neighbourly disputes year after year, decade on decade. That only holds on the pitch.

Step outside the white lines and this tournament is as modern and complicated as any corporate entity. The 2026 launch in Scotland’s capital on Monday morning was a blizzard of photo ops and content creators and bitesized quotes tailor-made for the modern age.

Caelan Doris was one of those asked for his favourite opposition anthem. TikTok ahoy! Although it’s unlikely Steve Borthwick’s choice of Wade Dooley as his favourite Six Nations player ever made it on to social media.

Dooley’s last cap for England was won seven years before Italy made the five a six.

The whole circus, having moved on from Rome this time last year, started in Edinburgh Castle where the coaches and captains posed for pictures before sauntering back down the hill behind a tartan-clad piper and past a bevvy of tourists and smart phones.

Eight more pipers and two drummers kicked off the interviews in The Hub, an entertainment venue turned into a confusing warren of rooms as ant-like armies of journalists and broadcasters scrambled for their thirty seconds of opportunity.

No-one likes these things, no-one gets everything they want, but everyone gets something. A line here, some injury news there. For the coaches and captains it is a feeding frenzy that they have to survive before the calmer waters of pre-tournament camps.

And, in fairness, they do it all with good grace and patience.

There is an understanding that this is as much a part of the game now as a crunching tackle or a gumshield. Even Borthwick, as old-fashioned a chap as you might imagine in rugby terms, knows that this is just how the tide turns now.

It was back in November when a TikTok dance posted online by Henry Pollock, Tommy Freeman, Freddie Steward and Fin Smith was viewed by millions shortly after they had seen off New Zealand in Twickenham.

Big Steve might not have added to the views, but he gets it.

“What’s great is the fans enjoy it. They connect with the players. They work exceptionally hard, they know I am going to ask even more of them in this Six Nations and they are great characters. The more people see of their character the more they connect with the team.” 

Creating some of the ‘noise’ associated with the Six Nations certainly beats being the focus of it, as is the case with a Wales team whose drastic form on the park has been a very visible representation of the off-field problems destroying the game in the Principality.

Head coach Steve Tandy wasn’t asked about favourite players or anthems. Not that we heard of anyway. He had hardly entered the room when he was talking about the “elephant” sat smack bang in the middle of it.

You couldn’t but feel for the man given he had faced all the same downbeat questions at his squad unveiling last week, and likely will again when England inevitably beat them with plenty to spare in London on Saturday week.

“For us it is probably the beginning of a journey through from the autumn. The past is the past but we can’t run away from it either. Those results are still there but, for us, it is about building our own story, our own identity of where we want to go in the game.

“There were some good starting points in the autumn, in particular in the New Zealand game where we felt we got a lot of what we wanted from it. England are a fair way down the track, as are most teams in the Six Nations at the minute, but we are on our journey.” 

So were the rest of us. Through the roll call of interviews. Through the lunch line that wound is way around bags and tables. And through the soundtrack of a black tie-suited piano player banging out Fly Me To The Moon in a press room full of cranky hacks.

The Six Nations won’t throw up a braver man or woman in the next two months.

Then again, that’s the essence of this thing: keeping your cool amid the maelstrom of it all, and none pull that off with the effortless ease of the always urbane Italy head coach Gonzalo Quesada who held court in four languages and in the sharpest of suits and shoes.

“We have maybe less players, and especially now that we have some injuries,” he said. “It is true that the narrative and the expectations are changing but we are just focusing on ourselves and making sure we improve from game to game.” 

Sweet nothings. Even Gonzalo can’t make them look good.