2001 Six Nations Championship 2001 Six Nations Championship The 2001 Six Nations Championship was the second series of the rugby union Six Nations Championship, and the 107th international championship overall. The tournament was affected by an outbreak of the highly infectious livestock disease foot and mouth in Britain. As a consequence, there were restrictions on travel and Ireland's three fixtures against the home nations were postponed until September and October. The eventual winners were England for the second year running, although they once again missed out on the Grand Slam at the final hurdle, losing to Ireland in the final match of the tournament
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