2009 Six Nations Championship their arrival at Dublin Airport. Brian O'Driscoll described 21 March as a “sweet, sweet day”. The game was watched by 945,000 people in Ireland, the highest rating television programme in the country by that stage of 2009. Former coach Eddie O'Sullivan was said to be "delighted" for the team. Brian O'Driscoll was named player of the tournament, beating Italy's Sergio Parisse and Ireland teammate Paul O'Connell. O'Connell was later named captain of the British and Irish Lions team to tour South Africa and containing fourteen members of the Grand Slam winning Irish team on 21 April 2009, describing it as
Grand Slam (rugby union) are awarded the Six Nations trophy (as tournament winners), but there is no special grand slam trophy – the Grand Slam is an informal honour recognizing a Championship-winning team which has won all their games. Although the term "grand slam" had long been in use in the game of contract bridge, the first time that the expression is known to have been applied to rugby union was in 1957, in a preview of a match between England and Scotland: The Grand Slam honour is applied retroactively to teams which won all of their matches in Five Nations tournaments before the