Grand Slam tours
A Grand Slam tour is a tour by a Southern Hemisphere rugby union national team in which the team plays and beats all four "home" nations - England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
This feat has been achieved four times by South Africa and New Zealand and once by Australia, who are the only Southern Hemisphere team to suffer a Grand Slam of defeats against the Home Nations, in 1957–58.
South Africa is the only team to have achieved the Grand Slam against the Five Nations: in the tours of 1912–13 and 1951–52. They also played, and defeated, France.
Because of the congested schedule in international rugby, Grand Slam tours may become less common. The last was in 2010, when New Zealand achieved their fourth Grand Slam. The original programme for the 2008 tour envisaged only three Test matches - the late inclusion of a Test against England made the Grand Slam possible for New Zealand. In addition, New Zealand played only one midweek match against Munster, and the match was only included in the tour programme as a 30th anniversary commemoration of Munster's defeat of the All Blacks in 1978 (ironically the match was the All Blacks' only loss in that Grand Slam tour). Traditional Grand Slam tours (before rugby went professional in 1995) were usually much longer with weekend tour games against national test teams as well as midweek matches against provincial sides .
List Grand Slam Tours
New Zealand
South Africa
Australia
Near Grand Slam tours
External links
Grand Slam tours
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Australia
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New Zealand
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South Africa
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