The Six Nations Championship is an annual international men's rugby union competition between the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. The championship holders are Ireland, who won the 2023 tournament, while the 2024 Six Nations Championship is currently in progress.
The King Baudouin Stadium is a sports ground in Brussels, Belgium. Located in the north-western district of the City of Brussels, it was built to embellish the Heysel/Heizel Plateau in view of the 1935 Brussels International Exposition. It was inaugurated on 23 August 1930, with Crown Prince Leopold attending the opening ceremony. The stadium hosted 70,000 at the time. Its name honours King Baudouin, Leopold's successor as King of the Belgians from 1951 to his death in 1993.
Hampden Park is a football stadium in the Mount Florida area of Glasgow, Scotland, which is the national stadium of football in Scotland and home of the Scotland national football team. Hampden Park is owned by the Scottish Football Association (SFA), and regularly hosts the latter stages of the Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup. A UEFA category four stadium, Hampden Park has hosted six European finals including the 1960 European Cup final between Real Madrid and Eintracht Frankfurt which, with a crowd of 127,621 in attendance, is the highest ever recorded attendance for a European Cup final.
The Italy national rugby union team represents the Italian Rugby Federation in men's international rugby union. The team is known as gli Azzurri. Savoy blue is the common colour of the national teams representing Italy, as it is the traditional colour of the royal House of Savoy which reigned over the Kingdom of Italy from 1860 to 1946.
The Top10, known as the Peroni Top10 for sponsorship reasons, and formerly Top 12, is Italy's top level professional men's rugby union competition. The Top 10 is run by Federazione Italiana Rugby (FIR) and is contested by 10 teams as of the 2019–2020 season, following the Italian federation's decision to name Peroni as the official partner of the Top10 competition.
The province of Padua is a province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Padua.
Murrayfield Stadium is a rugby stadium located in the Murrayfield area of Edinburgh, Scotland. It has a seating capacity of 67,144 making it the largest stadium in Scotland and the fifth largest in the United Kingdom.
The Stade de la Beaujoire – Louis Fonteneau, mostly known as Stade de la Beaujoire, is a stadium in Nantes, France. It is the home of French football club FC Nantes.
Ravenhill Stadium is a rugby stadium located in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the home of Ulster Rugby. With the opening of a new stand for the 2014 Heineken Cup quarter-final against Saracens on 5 April 2014, the capacity of the stadium is now 18,196. The stadium is owned by the Irish Rugby Football Union.
The Italy national rugby league team represents Italy in rugby league football. With origins dating back to the 1950s and 1960s, the team has competed regularly in international competitions since 2008, when their current governing body, the Federazione Italiana Rugby League, was formed. They are currently ranked 13th in the IRL World Rankings.
The Salford Community Stadium is a rugby stadium in Barton-upon-Irwell, England, built to replace Salford rugby league club's ground the Willows for the 2012 season. Sale Sharks rugby union club have also played at the stadium since the 2012–13 season.
The Stadio Friuli is an all-seater football stadium in Udine, Italy, and the home of Serie A club Udinese.
Stadio Euganeo is a football stadium in Padua, Italy. It is also used for athletics, concerts, rugby league and rugby union. It replaced the old and historical Appiani stadium.
The Czech Republic national rugby league team was established to broaden the skills of the rugby union team. The team has competed in a number of competitions and hosted the Slavic Cup in 2006.
The Coppa Italia, from 2011 to 2018 Excellence Trophy, is a rugby union competition in Italy for domestic clubs. The competition is second to the Top12, the Italian national championship. The competition has been contested annually since 1967, though it was not held from 1974 to 1980, and 1983 to 1994, and again in 1996, 1999 and 2002. The first club to win the competition was CUS Roma.
The Italy national rugby sevens team has occasionally competed in the IRB Sevens World Series since the series' was introduced in 1999, although they do not participate in every leg. Their first ever points in the World Series came in 2003, when they scored four points in the Cardiff leg of the series. Italy also competes in the Rugby Europe Sevens Grand Prix Series each summer.
Andrea Marcato is an Italian rugby union coach and former international player. He won 16 caps for Italy and played in the 2008 and 2009 Six Nations Championships. After the end of his playing career he began coaching and is the head coach of Petrarca Rugby, a position he has held since 2017.
Aviva Stadium also known as Lansdowne Road or Dublin Arena is a sports stadium located in Dublin, Ireland, with a capacity for 51,711 spectators. It is built on the site of the former Lansdowne Road Stadium, which was demolished in 2007, and replaced it as home to its chief tenants: the Irish rugby union team and the Republic of Ireland football team. The decision to redevelop the stadium came after plans for both Stadium Ireland and Eircom Park fell through. Aviva Group Ireland signed a 10-year deal for the naming rights in 2009, and subsequently extended the arrangement until 2025.
Luca Martin is a former Italian rugby union player and a current coach. He played as a centre and as a fullback.
The 2021 Men's Rugby League World Cup qualification was the qualifying process which will decide the 8 teams that would join the 8 quarter-finalists from the 2017 World Cup including the hosts England, who received an automatic spot, at the 2021 Rugby League World Cup. The process commenced in June 2018, with the commencement of the 2018–19 Rugby League European Championship C tournament, which acted as the first round for European qualification.
