The 2022 Six Nations just finished this past weekend – and what a tournament it was…
Much of the excitement this year came from surprising developments that particularly interested us here at InnerDrive. So, our sport and performance psychologists got together to discuss our main takeaways from the 2022 Six Nations. Here’s what stood out to us the most…
Over the last few years, England and now other teams have started to call their substitutes “finishers”. We like this idea. Whilst we are not saying that everyone should do this, there are four reasons why we think this works.
The French team won the title for the first time in 12 years and secured a Grand Slam victory too – meaning they didn't lose a single match this year! They have been described as superior in every area, strong up front, more accurate in the backs, tighter in defence, and clinical in attack. They never lost their fire and kept fighting till the end to secure that Grand Slam.
They all knew what they needed to do and worked together to achieve it. They still had moments where they switched off during Tests, almost losing to Ireland in Round 2 after a fast start and giving England some hope over the weekend.
But they knew how to bring back the focus, keeping their attention in the right places and staying resilient throughout. These are the qualities that the other teams didn’t have, leading them to their victory.
We’ve looked at the research behind home advantage and found it has consistently shown to make a difference in sport. We have found that the home teams in football get better decisions from referees, score more goals, can be spurred on to put in more effort, enjoy a sense of familiarity before and during the match, and may even benefit from a testosterone boost.
But at this year’s Six Nations, surprisingly, this wasn’t really the case. There were many games were the home team were defeated, the most obvious example being when France beat Scotland at home 36-17 – the heaviest home defeat suffered by Scotland in 7 years.
There were five other cases where the home team was defeated throughout the Six Nations this year. Perhaps this shows that although a home advantage exists, no team should rely on it exclusively – ultimately, the best team can and often will still win.
Before the tournament even started, defending champions, Wales were plagued with injuries and struggled to put a team together. For many of the players who had to miss the Six Nations, this would have been a tough time for them to just sit and watch when they want to be on the field.
As sport psychologists, we often work with our athletes to help them grow through injuries and see that there can even an upside to them. Athletes can use the period of time following injury for self-reflection and as an opportunity to grow through adversity.
We advise our athletes to grow through injury by:
England’s performance has been labelled as a “disaster” by the media. The pressure seemed to get to them, and they didn’t produce the results they wanted. They are going to need to pick themselves up ahead of their three-Test series in July.
Is your team in a similar situation? To bounce back, we suggest players and coaches need to:
This year’s Six Nations provided another few weeks of exciting rugby, full of highs and lows and many things for the players and coaches to take away.
All the teams should be taking time to reflect, learning from their mistakes and focusing on what they need to do now, not being hung up on what’s happened or what’s to come. We are excited to see what happens next for the teams, whether France can carry on being relentless and if England can bounce back!