1997 Five Nations Championship Explained

1997 Five Nations Championship
Date:18 January – 15 March 1997
Countries:



Count:11
Grand Slam: (5th title)
Triple Crown: (20th title)
Matches:10
Tries:50
Top Point Scorer: Paul Grayson (52 points)
Top Try Scorer: David Venditti
Laurent Leflamand (4 tries)
Previous Year:1996
Previous Tournament:1996 Five Nations Championship
Next Year:1998
Next Tournament:1998 Five Nations Championship

The 1997 Five Nations Championship was the sixty-eighth series of the rugby union Five Nations Championship. Including the previous incarnations as the Home Nations and Five Nations, this was the hundred-and-third series of the northern hemisphere rugby union championship. Ten matches were played over five weekends from 18 January to 15 March, the crucial match being in Weekend 4 where England inexplicably threw away a 20–6 lead at Twickenham with quarter of the match to go and were pipped by France. France went on to win their first Grand Slam in ten years; England defeated the other Home Nations by large margins to win the Triple Crown. It was the last time that France played at the Parc des Princes, in Paris. Since then, the French team has been playing in the Stade de France, also in Paris.[1]

Participants

The teams involved were:

NationVenueCityHead coachCaptain
Twickenham StadiumLondonJack RowellPhil de Glanville
Parc des PrincesParisJean-Claude SkrelaAbdelatif Benazzi
Lansdowne RoadDublinBrian AshtonKeith Wood/Jim Staples
Murrayfield StadiumEdinburghJim TelferRob Wainwright
National StadiumCardiffKevin BowringJonathan Humphreys

Results

Week 1

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Week 2

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Week 3

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Week 4

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Week 5

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External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Rothmans Rugby Union Yearbook 1997–98. 1997. Headline Book Publishing. London. 0-7472-7732-X. Mick Cleary and John Griffiths.