Autumn Nations Cup


The Autumn Nations Cup was a rugby union competition held in November and December 2020 in place of the usual Autumn internationals series typically held in the same period each year, as many teams were avoiding extended travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Eight teams participated – the teams involved in the Six Nations Championship plus Georgia and Fiji – divided into two groups of four. Japan were originally going to take part but withdrew due to travel restrictions, resulting in them being replaced by Georgia and moving Fiji to Group B.
Each team played the others in its group once to determine the final group standings; the teams in first place in each group then played each other, as did the teams in second, third, and fourth, to determine the overall standings. The tournament opened with a match between Ireland and Wales at the Aviva Stadium on 13 November 2020, and the final matches were hosted by the teams from Group A on the weekend of 5/6 December 2020. Wales' home matches were played at Parc y Scarlets due to the Millennium Stadium being decommissioned as a COVID-19 hospital. Fiji were forced to concede all of their group games due to a COVID-19 outbreak in their team camp, but they were able to face Georgia in the 7th/8th-place playoff.
England won the tournament after wins over Ireland, Wales, Georgia, and France.

Overview

Participants

World Rugby rankings denoted in as per start of the tournament
NationHead coachCaptain
ru|FIJ

Venues

Fixtures

Group A

Round 1

Notes:
  • Jacob Stockdale and Iain Henderson were named to start but were ruled out on matchday and replaced by Quinn Roux and Andrew Conway; Tadhg Beirne was added to the bench.
  • Billy Burns and James Lowe and Callum Sheedy made their international debuts.
  • Tomas Francis earned his 50th test cap.
  • George North became the seventh Wales player to earn 100 test caps. He also became the youngest player to earn his 100th cap at 28 years and 225 days, surpassing Australia's Michael Hooper's record of 28 years and 348 days.
  • Johnny Sexton became the seventh Ireland player to earn 100 test caps.
  • Alun Wyn Jones became the first player to earn 150 test caps.
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Round 1

Notes:
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Round 2

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Notes:
  • Scotland lost at home to France for the first time since 2014.

    Round 3

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Notes:

7th/8th place play-off

Notes:
Notes:
  • Monty Ioane made his international debut.
  • Johnny Williams was named to start at inside centre, but picked up an injury ahead of kick-off and Jonathan Davies replaced him in the starting XV.

    3rd/4th place play-off

Notes:
  • Eric O'Sullivan and Jaco van der Walt made their international debuts.
  • Sean Maitland earned his 50th test cap.
  • Stuart McInally was named among the replacements, but was replaced before kick-off by George Turner.

    Final

Notes:
  • Guillaume Ducat and Selevasio Tolofua made their international debuts.

    Final standings

Player statistics

Most points

Most tries