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Italian Rugby Fans to Get Closer to the Action

Six Nations Rugby and Sky Italia will build on their longstanding partnership in 2026 to give fans in Italy access to enjoy every moment from next year’s Six Nations Championships, and the new cross hemisphere international rugby tournament: the Nations Championship.

The Nations Championship has been created by Six Nations Rugby and SANZAAR through a landmark joint venture, to transform the July and November international rugby windows into a single competitive tournament, every two years. Featuring the twelve strongest nations, and packed with the best players in the sport, the Nations Championship will put the Northern and Southern Hemispheres against each other to decide a winning team, and dominant Hemisphere. Italy will join their fellow Six Nations teams in the Northern Hemisphere group, taking on the likes of South Africa, New Zealand, and Argentina, and Sky Italia will bring fans every minute of the action next year, when the new tournament debuts in July.

Kicking off 2026, the Guinness Men’s Six Nations gets underway on Thursday 5th February, with every fixture from the next edition of the iconic tournament available to fans on Sky Italia: the home of rugby in Italy.

In recent years, the Six Nations has seen the Azzuri claim famous wins against their European rivals, and stars of Italian rugby burst onto the international stage, including Tomasso Menoncello, a graduate of the U20 Six Nations, and 2024 Guinness Six Nations Player of The Championship winner.

Sky Italia will also resume its coverage of the annual U20 Six Nations; a vital pathway competition, fostering the future stars of the Azzuri, and running alongside its elite men’s counterpart. Italy kick off their U20 campaign against Scotland next year, in Treviso, on Friday 6th February.

The Guinness Women’s Six Nations is the biggest annual occasion in the women’s game, and next year will see fixtures held at major stadiums across Europe to meet the interest and engagement with women’s rugby following a groundbreaking Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2025. Sky Italia will continue its support of the women’s game, by bringing every fixture from next year’s Championship to Italian fans, to complete the trio of Six Nations tournaments covered by the broadcaster.

The new partnership with Six Nations Rugby cements Sky Italia as the home of rugby in Italy, with the broadcaster also offering fans coverage of the French Top 14, and the United Rugby Championship, which features the best club teams across Italy, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and South Africa.

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  1. Sport Trivia: She was the first South African to win gold at the Olympics after 44 years. She won the gold medal in the 100m and 200m breaststroke in Atlanta in 1996. Answer: Penny Heyns. Penny Heynes held 14 records for breaststroke. During the 1999 Pan Pacific games, she broke 6 world records, (many of them her own previous records), and by the end of 1999 she held the record for the 50m, 100m and 200m long course breaststroke, simultaneously.

  2. Rugby was originally called something else entirely – If historians are to be believed, the game we now know as rugby was initially played over 2,000 years ago by the Romans. The game was known by the Latin name Harpastum, derived from the Greek term for seize, which seems rather apt given the aim of the game.