Yeah, no shit. The concept of <number of Nations involved> + <the word Nations> doesn’t really seem too hard to explain.
Oh yeah? Like most of us in Britain, you’ve grown up with ‘Five/Six Nations’ being used almost entirely in a rugby context. Your belief that it’s an obvious nickname to choose is highly subject to confirmation bias, or something akin to it. You’re looking at past events through the prism of knowing what happened, or was forgotten, later. The Iroquois usage may have been far more common in Britain and Ireland in the past than we are currently aware.
I actually don’t think ‘Five Nations’ would have been an obvious choice for a nickname for a competition between the teams of France, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England, unless the phrase was already familiar in another context. AFAIK we never called the Home Internationals in football or rugby the ‘Four Nations’.
You might be right, but with only four nations involved there is no need for a name other than “Home Internationals”. The introduction of France meant a new name was needed.
I suspect Eddie Jones was (as always, probably) much calmer in his press conference than he was in the dressing room. What a strange and wonderful game that was. If losing out on the grand slam to Wales wasn’t enough of a kick up the backside for England ahead of the World Cup, then this should be. I’d actually back England to progress further than Wales, as a result - psychologically they will be more up for it.
- Bounces up and down * I was there! As a guest of the stadium sponsors, so rather marvellous box seats. And I cried during the national anthem (and I’m not even Welsh).
I don’t think it’s a mystery that the tournament was called the Home Nations Championship from its founding, until France joined in 1910 and it became the Five Nations Championship. You can look it up on the Six Nations website.
Where?
Nice retrospective speculation going on here guys, shame it’s not backed up by any documentary evidence of the first times ‘Five Nations’ was used in a rugby context in print.
I’m looking at the report of Scotland’s first Grand Slam in 1925 in the Glasgow Herald (main report is page 13). The paper just talks about ‘The International Championship’. There is no mention of the ‘Five Nations’, and nor is the phrase ‘Grand Slam’ used anywhere.
In other words, you cannot assume that terms that have been retrospectively applied to past sporting events and achievements were actually used at the time.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while and although I was first inclined to dismiss it, there are a couple of critical points that are worth re-iterating:
We were 31-0 down; we went 38-31 up with six unanswered tries (some of which were just beautiful); we threw it away.
I wouldn’t characterise it quite like that (funnily enough :)) - I seem to remember at least 3 of the tries were from errors by England. 2 were interceptions weren’t they? Then at the end, Scotland were knackered and England were highly motivated to get that last score, so I think throwing it away is harsh. Not to take away from the amazing comeback, overall Scotland probably deserved the win and did play some excellent rugby.
Interceptions can also be beautiful!
Johnson’s charge for the line, first side-stepping and then powering through multiple tacklers; Price’s chip then offload to Bradbury; Finn’s looping pass that led to Graham going over in the corner were the ones I was thinking of. A few of these got started due to poor England play, but if anything that just makes them better. 
Scotland threw it away when they a) gave up a penalty on the halfway line in the 79th minute and b) in the 77th minute when they had possession didn’t just cycle it through the forwards and boot it out.