England fall just short as Ireland retain Six Nations title after remarkable day of rugby

England were left heartbroken after missing out on the Six Nations title again as they scored seven tries in an incredible 55-35 win over France but still saw the crown go to Ireland.

Ireland's Eoin Reddan, left, leads the celebrations after victory over Scotland at Murrayfield. Ian MacNicol / AFP

Ireland retained the Six Nations title on points difference following the highest-scoring day in the tournament’s history as a record 221 points were scored in the three fixtures played.

Ireland’s 40-10 victory at Scotland proved enough for coach Joe Schmidt’s side to take the championship on points difference, with their total of 63 being six better than England’s 57 and Wales’s 53.

England, Ireland and Wales laid started the day level on six points, but it was Wales who had down the gauntlet to their rivals by beating Italy 61-20 in the first match of the day as they scored eight tries.

They led 14-13 at the break thanks to Jamie Roberts’s try, but in the second half George North claimed a hat-trick of tries, with Liam Williams, Rhys Webb, captain Sam Warburton and Scott Williams all going over.

Ireland then did enough in Edinburgh to ensure that it would not be Wales’s day as two tries from Sean O’Brien and scores from captain Paul O’Connell and Jared Payne gave them a comfortable win over Scotland, with Johnny Sexton kicking 18 points.

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England, playing last, needed to win by 27 points to better Ireland’s points difference. They fell short in beating France 55-35 at Twickenham despite scoring seven tries as Ben Youngs and Jack Nowell both went over for two tries each, with Anthony Watson, George Ford and Billy Vunipola also crossing the whitewash.

But France proved dangerous when they had the ball and scored five tries through Sebastien Tillous-Borde, Noa Nakaitaci, Maxime Mermoz, Vincent Debaty and Benjamin Kayser as they contributed to the highest-scoring match in Six Nations history.

Nowell’s second try with six minutes remaining left England a converted try away from winning the title, but despite late pressure on the France line, England coach Stuart Lancaster’s side fell short as Ireland returned to the field at Murrayfield in front of an almost empty stadium, more than two hours after their game had finished, for O’Connell to lift the trophy.

Schmidt said it was tough for the Ireland camp to watch England go so close.

“It was tumultuous,” he told the BBC. “Exhausting. I’m delighted on behalf of the team. I spare a thought for England, they were superb today and probably deserved a share of the spoils. I’m looking forward to being quite relaxed now. Hopefully we can keep going forward.” O’Connell added: “I think we’d be very proud of what we’ve done in the last eight weeks, in terms of how we’ve addressed certain things in our performance, in attack, defence and our resolve to come out and produce a good performance like that after losing last week.”

Lancaster acknowledged he found it difficult to come to terms with England missing out on the title, despite achieving their highest points total against France.

“I’m gutted really,” he said. “It was one of the most courageous performances I’ve seen from a team. It was an unbelievable game of rugby.

“The first two France tries hurt us. But to come back like we did, it will go down as one of the great games of rugby.”

Despite missing out on the championship, Warren Gatland, the Wales coach, took heart in his side’s performance with thoughts turning to the World Cup in September.

“We dug in there and 60 points is not bad,” he said. “We’ve always said as a squad we get better the more time we spend together, and I think we’ve improved as the tournament has gone on.

“We can look forward to the World Cup now and we know we’re in such a tough group.”

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