Thomas Ramos had already kicked France to the brink of heartbreak and back once on that Saturday evening of March 14th in Paris.

Now he stood over one more penalty, from long range, with the clock showing red and eighty thousand voices somewhere between a scream and a held breath. Everything came down to this. 

Five months of a championship that Les Bleus were expected to win, a rivalry that stretches back more than a century, and a scoreline that had swung so many times nobody in the Stade de France could ever confidently say who was winning.

England were out of contention, but they showed up to the City of Love determined to break hearts.

And leading by one point with the clock already past 80 minutes, they very nearly did. 

France beat England in parisian epic 

It had been a 13-try, 94-point classic by the time Ramos stepped up, the kind of match that gets talked about for years rather than weeks.

Louis Bielle-Biarrey had run in four tries to break his own single-championship record, a rampaging, seven-minute opener among them.

England, transformed from the side that had capitulated to Italy a week earlier, matched France score for score and somehow still found themselves ahead with four minutes left, Tommy Freeman finishing brilliantly to cap a seven-try England performance. 

Then a Demba Bamba sin-bin seemingly ended French hopes.

But the chance would eventually come in the form of a late penalty, and Ramos, cool as you like, made sure the story ended in blue. Final score: 48-46.

A second straight Six Nations crown headed to Paris in arguably the finest finale this great tournament has ever seen. 

Now, seven months later, it might be too early to start talking about the next one.

But we’re going to anyway.

Here is how each team is gearing up for the 2027 Six Nations, five months out from the showdown getting underway. 

Les Bleus remain the team to beat 

Ask any French supporter about round four back in March and watch the wince.

Being up by ten against Scotland and still losing by ten does something to a squad’s sense of itself, even a champion one.

Antoine Dupont knows plenty about resilience – he tore his ACL against Ireland last year and only got his body back playing rugby again in late November, earning Team of the Tournament honors on his return before a calf injury wiped out his entire Nations Championship summer. 

France still went 2-1 without him, beating Australia and Japan and losing only to the All Blacks.

Bielle-Biarrey’s nine-try haul ensured he retained the Player of the Championship crown, carrying his beloved Les Bleus even when Dupont couldn’t.

Now, online betting sites make them the favorites again. 

One can bet on sports at Bovada, and the popular bookmaker lists the defending champions as the 13/10 frontrunner to complete a first three-peat in tournament history.

Top billing is deserved, but Murrayfield last time around proved they can be got at.

The Irish threat 

Andy Farrell walked straight off a Lions tour and into another Triple Crown earlier this year, his side denied the outright title by that last-gasp Ramos penalty.

The 42-21 demolition of England in round three at Twickenham was the peak; the round-one loss in Paris was the cost. 

Somewhere in between, Sam Prendergast found himself dropped from the matchday squad altogether for three rounds – a brutal call on a young fly-half – before rebuilding himself with a successful URC title defense at Leinster and reclaiming the shirt for the Nations Championship.

Caelan Doris’s captaincy never wavered through any of it. 

A 2-1 summer, beating Australia and Japan either side of a loss in Auckland, says this squad isn’t done growing.

Whether that’s enough to take the fight to the all-conquering French is a different matter entirely. 

Can England bounce back? 

Picture Steve Borthwick the Monday after that stunning Rome defeat: an eleven-match winning run in the rear-view mirror, a maiden defeat to Italy just delivered, and an RFU review about to pick apart everything his group had built.

He came out the other side with his contract extended, which tells you plenty about how differently that collapse from Grand Slam contenders to a worst-ever fifth-place finish was read behind closed doors versus in the stands.

The summer offered fragments of repair – wins over Fiji and Argentina, Marcus Smith and Sam Underhill both reaching fifty caps in that Paris epic – but this is a program still in the midst of a painful post-mortem. 

Finally Scotland’s time? 

What does it do to a squad’s psyche to put fifty points on the reigning champions and still finish third?

Scotland’s win over France was one of the great individual performances of the championship – the highest score ever recorded against Les Bleus – and their Calcutta Cup reclaim over England was nearly as loud.

Finn Russell, Kyle Steyn, and Rory Darge all made the Team of the Championship.

Losing Steve Tandy to Wales stings, but the ceiling here is as high as anyone’s.

The aim has to be a first-ever crown, even if 7/1 odds make it seem unlikely. 

Italy’s sturdy foundation 

Nobody in Rome will forget the noise when Leonardo Marin crossed with eight minutes left to beat England for the first time in thirty-two attempts stretching back to 1992.

Gonzalo Quesada’s rebuild had already produced a first tournament-opening win since 2013, against Scotland in the rain, but toppling England turned belief into something closer to certainty. 

At least it did, before three summer defeats to Japan, New Zealand and Australia shipped 131 points and dragged the Azzurri back down to earth with a bang.

Michele Lamaro’s leadership and Tommaso Menoncello’s Team of the Championship form carried them to their best finish in years.

The floor has risen. The ceiling, for now, hasn’t.

Wales remain at rock bottom 

There’s a particular kind of silence in a losing dressing room that becomes routine, and then there’s the noise that broke it in Cardiff.

Wales went into the final round on a losing run stretching back three years in this championship, and Aaron Wainwright’s double against Italy ended it in the most emphatic way possible, 31-17, their first home win in the tournament since 2022.

It still wasn’t enough to avoid a third straight wooden spoon on points difference. 

Steve Tandy is blooding uncapped talent – Gabriel Hamer-Webb and Louie Hennessey among them – in a squad averaging just twenty-six.

This remains a Wales side at rock bottom, and that 2021 championship feels like a lifetime ago.

The aim for now is simply climbing their way from the foot of the table.