Italy to Host the Six Nations in Rome; Dupont Back!

Italy will play three home games in the 2025 edition of the annual Six Nations rugby union championship, which kicks off on 31 January and ends on 15 March.

The Azzurri will face Wales on Saturday, 8 February at 15.15, France on Sunday, 23 February at 16.00, and defending champions Ireland on Saturday, 15 March at 15.15.

All three Italy matches will be played at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. This time around, early bird options are already available in the secondary marketplace, and Italy is carrying momentum to the 2025 leg. 

All those who had Six Nations tickets will remember the heroics from the 2024 series and will have high hopes for their side to do one better. 

With a huge talent pool and a mix of young and experienced talent, Italy will be the team to watch out for this season as Ireland looks to mount an unimaginable title defense for the third consecutive time. 

Dupont Back with France XVs

French Olympic rugby sevens gold medallist Antoine Dupont returned to club training on Monday with an eye on playing his first game of the season for Toulouse this weekend.

Scrum-half Dupont, 27, has made sporadic appearances at the French Top 14 club’s training base since winning gold in Paris in late July but is in line to face Clermont on Saturday.

“The players present are all available,” Toulouse said on Monday.

Since taking Les Bleus to Olympic success on home soil, Dupont has been named the Top 14’s player of the season for 2023/24 and has made the most of his global fame while on a post-Olympic break.

He spent more than a week in the United States, meeting Argentina football icon Lionel Messi in Miami, NBA legend LeBron James in California, and visiting the Los Angeles Chargers’ NFL set-up.

The iconic picture that Messi and Dupont shared, holding an Inter-Miami jersey, had a special place in the hearts of every France Rugby fan with Six Nations tickets. 

In Dupont’s absence, record 23-time French champions Toulouse have started the new season sluggishly. With three wins from their opening five games, they are fifth in the Top 14 table.

The six-time Champions Cup winners have lost two straight games, including Sunday’s game at local rivals Castres and in the previous round to Bordeaux-Begles, their first home loss since February 2022.

His return implies better times for France in the upcoming games and sends a strong message to the Irish camp. Dupont’s substitution in the Olympics gold medal match proved to be the single most important decision that eventually resulted in a gold medal for the side. 

As the Parc des Princes echoed loud chants with over 60,000 fans with Six Nations tickets from the secondary marketplace, the stadium erupted when the final whistle was blown.

The story of France 7s will be a case study that will be taught and remembered over the next few decades. It shows how a team that was nowhere near the top three in the last few years suddenly saw a turnaround to win gold at the Olympics. 

The hero of this story will be their XV skipper, Antoine Dupont. 

Dupont’s return comes a month before France’s 15-a-side team opens their November Test series against Japan on November 9. They will then face New Zealand a week later and Argentina on November 22.

Dupont will not return to sevens this season but has refused to rule out an appearance at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

The two fixtures against New Zealand and Argentina will be crucial in showing the power of French rugby in building the World League. Options for the New Zealand game will soon be available in the secondary marketplace. 

The All Blacks look like they’ve never been this vulnerable. Despite the new coach, the team looks distraught, as seen in the Rugby Championship, and any experienced coach should see through their pitfalls. 

On the other hand, the Pumas have had an excellent season, winning with every opponent for the first time. Despite finishing third behind the All Blacks, all who had options to watch the games from the secondary marketplace were quite vocal about seeing the progress that they’ve made in the last year. 

The Autumn tests will be the ideal proving grounds for the French before the Grand Slam 2025. Fans looking to buy Six Nations tickets will anxiously look at the two fixtures, hoping that their side will do well in setting up a stiff Six Nations in 2025. 

France’s Olympic men’s sevens success overshadowed off-field events that marred France’s 15-a-side July tour of South America. Lock Hugo Auradou and flanker Oscar Jegou were arrested on allegations of raping a woman in Mendoza hours after making their Test debuts.

The pair deny rape and were allowed to return home in September.

On Friday, the prosecutor’s office in Mendoza recommended that the charges of aggravated rape against Auradou and Jegou be dismissed at a hearing set for October 18.

Wales Need a Lift Up 

After getting the wooden spoon this time at the Six Nations, all the Welsh fans who spent big to make it to the games with options from the secondary marketplace were furious. 

The fans are clearly unhappy about how things spanned out for Wales and hope that things will get bigger with the Autumn tests. 

Former Wales fly-half Dan Biggar believes Warren Gatland can turn struggling Wales around but says the head coach will face increased pressure if his side’s losing run continues from all the fans with Six Nations tickets. 

The 34-year-old is among several experienced players Wales have lost in recent years, having retired from international rugby after last year’s World Cup.

Since the quarter-final defeat to Argentina in France, Wales have lost nine successive internationals and slipped to 11th in the world rankings, their lowest-ever position.

Gatland’s side face Fiji, Australia and South Africa in Cardiff in November. Tickets for all three games are available in the secondary marketplace.