All that performance data, all those fixture permutations. All the gym sessions and marginal selections. Not to mention all those finger-in-the-wind tournament previews. But what if identifying the winner of the 2026 Six Nations basically involves overlooking all of that and is shaped by an underlying factor so simple that it is staring everybody in the face?
Interested in finding out what this might be? OK, here goes. Without cheating (or consulting your new friend Monsieur AI), spot the common link in the following sequence of years: 2022, 2018, 2014, 2010, 2006, 2002, 1998, 1994, 1990, 1984, 1981, 1978, 1975, 1972, 1969 and 1967? Tricky, isn’t it? Even years, odd years, irregular gaps … if you were a statistician seeking a mathematical pattern you would be sat there gazing at the numbers for a long time.
