All that performance data, all those fixture permutations. All the gym sessions and marginal selections. Not to mention all those finger-in-the-wind tournament previews. But what if identifying the winner of the 2026 Six Nations basically involves overlooking all of that and is shaped by an underlying factor so simple that it is staring everybody in the face?

Interested in finding out what this might be? OK, here goes. Without cheating (or consulting your new friend Monsieur AI), spot the common link in the following sequence of years: 2022, 2018, 2014, 2010, 2006, 2002, 1998, 1994, 1990, 1984, 1981, 1978, 1975, 1972, 1969 and 1967? Tricky, isn’t it? Even years, odd years, irregular gaps … if you were a statistician seeking a mathematical pattern you would be sat there gazing at the numbers for a long time.

Keen-eyed students of the game, however, may have spotted the connection. All the above are the years when the Five or Six Nations championship took place after a British & Irish Lions tour. The strange-but-true punchline: how many times in those 16 tournaments after a Lions tour have England secured the title? The answer is a stone-cold zero.

Remarkably, it is necessary to rewind 63 years to 1963 – before any of today’s national coaches were born, never mind the players – to find the last occasion an England squad bucked the trend. Since pro rugby kicked off in 1995, guess what? In those seven post-Lions tour windows only two countries – France and Ireland – have lifted the title with Les Bleus, unaffected by any Lions hangovers, claiming five of those titles; four of them complete with a grand slam.

Look, maybe this is all just a bizarre historical coincidence with a decreasing shelf life. Player load management is steadily improving and the modern athlete is accustomed to “going again” for club and country. But even so. If you were having a flutter, with the 2025 Lions tour to Australia in the rear-view mirror, you would be tempted to lump a few euros on France continuing the trend.

This is not a thesis the tournament organisers will be absolutely rushing to promote. On the face of it, the championship this year should be among the most splendidly unpredictable and compelling. A resurgent England, a talent-stuffed France, a Scotland team overdue a good campaign, a defiant Ireland, an improving Italy, a desperate Wales … all the ingredients exist for an exciting few weeks that will further enhance the joy of six.

The concluding Super Saturday in mid-March will certainly be a belter if France and England are unbeaten heading into their final-round tango in Paris. England, without a grand slam since 2016, have not won a Six Nations game across the Channel for a decade. As for France, the 2025 winners, they have won back-to-back titles once this century.

But the Six Nations would not be the Six Nations without an unforeseen twist somewhere along the line. Could this finally – finally – be Scotland’s year? There are those north of the border who believe there is more chance of spotting the Loch Ness monster than their team winning the Six Nations this year, which just goes to prove how bad for morale regular disappointment can be.

Yet on the surface there remains at least a modicum of dark blue hope, assuming they do not slip up in Rome on Saturday. England on a snowy weekend at Murrayfield, a side who have beaten themtwice in their past eight meetings? Followed by Wales away and then France at home, with Glasgow’s Champions Cup pool win against Toulouse fresh in the memory? Although Scotland seldom approach Dublin with huge confidence, they may have a little more momentum by then.

Italy, on the other hand, have at least one big performance in them. The same could conceivably apply to Wales, for all their domestic turmoil. Take a look down the squad list and the best available XV is decent; Steve Tandy is a positive-minded head coach and they put four tries past New Zealand in November. Admittedly, they also conceded 125 points in their last two outings, against the All Blacks and the Springboks in November, but, hey, that was then.

And the more that people write off an injury-hit Ireland, similarly, the more scope there will be for inspirational speeches from Andy Farrell behind closed doors. There should be only one winner in the Stade de France on Thursday evening, but the forecast is damp, France are sadly without their floored front-row totem Uini Atonio and green miracles in Paris do occasionally happen. Remember Brian O’Driscoll scoring a hat-trick to clinch a 27-25 victory in this fixture in 2000? No one gave Ireland a prayer then, either.

On paper, though, it is England who loom as France’s biggest threat. To be at their training camp in Girona has been to detect a greater sense of shared purpose, togetherness and quiet confidence than has been the case in a while. Eleven wins on the spin is no accident and Wales at home first up offers a prime opportunity to shake off any midwinter rust.

Since the start of the 2023 World Cup their biggest defeat has been by nine points. Attack-wise, they averaged five tries per game during the 2025 Six Nations. The only question is whether their touring Lions – there are 11 in their matchday 23 to face Wales – can resist history’s riptide. If not, on the evidence of the past six decades, brace yourselves for another French title.

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