I’ve compiled the highest and lowest scores in professional and international rugby tournaments in recent seasons. If you just want the numbers, here are the maximum and minimum home and away scores.
The rest of this article has background, commentary, and analysis on these results.
Note that the Home and Away scores are independent. We’ve taken the highest score for all the home teams, and the highest score for all the away teams.
Summary Of The Highest And Lowest Scores In Rugby
| Club Competition | Home | Away | Home | Away |
| 2020/21 | Max | Max | Min | Min |
| England Premiership | 74 | 62 | 3 | 3 |
| PRO 14 | 52 | 54 | 3 | 6 |
| France Top 14 | 73 | 59 | 0 | 0 |
| USA Major League Rugby | 57 | 53 | 0 | 0 |
| European Champions Cup | 56 | 57 | 7 | 3 |
| Super Rugby | 61 | 64 | 3 | 6 |
| World Cup | Home | Away | Home | Away |
| Max | Max | Min | Min | |
| 2019 | 71 | 45 | 3 | 0 |
| 2015 | 65 | 43 | 5 | 0 |
| 2011 | 87 | 27 | 6 | 0 |
| Rugby Championship | Home | Away | Home | Away |
| Max | Max | Min | Min | |
| 2019 | 47 | 46 | 13 | 10 |
| 2018 | 46 | 45 | 13 | 12 |
| Six Nations | Home | Away | Home | Away |
| Max | Max | Min | Min | |
| 2021 | 52 | 50 | 6 | 10 |
| 2020 | 50 | 34 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 57 | 38 | 11 | 7 |
What Are The Highest Scores In Professional Club Rugby?
The highest score in professional club rugby matches across the world was 74 points to the home team in the 2020/2021 season. The highest away score was 64 points.
The highest scores occurred in the English Premiership and the French Top 14.
Super Rugby was third at about ten points lower.
This table shows the highest score by the home team across each tournament.
| Club Competition | Season | Highest Home Score |
| England Premiership | 2020/21 | 74 |
| PRO 14 | 2020/21 | 52 |
| France Top 14 | 2020/21 | 73 |
| USA Major League Rugby | 2020/21 | 57 |
| European Champions Cup | 2020/21 | 56 |
| Super Rugby | 2020/21 | 61 |
The table below shows the highest score by the away teams across each club competition.
| Club Competition | Season | Highest Away Score |
| England Premiership | 2020/21 | 62 |
| PRO 14 | 2020/21 | 54 |
| France Top 14 | 2020/21 | 59 |
| USA Major League Rugby | 2020/21 | 53 |
| European Champions Cup | 2020/21 | 57 |
| Super Rugby | 2020/21 | 64 |
Which club tournament has the highest score?
It’s sometimes assumed that Super Rugby in the Southern Hemisphere has more open high-scoring matches.
In contrast, the English Premiership can be slated as being boring forward-oriented rugby, full of rolling mauls and box-kicks.
These maximum scores don’t prove anything about style! But I was surprised to see that the Premiership had a match with the highest score across all these tournaments.
What Are The Lowest Scores In Professional Club Rugby?
The lowest possible score in a rugby match is for a team to score no points. The next lowest score is three points for a single penalty.
Below is the lowest score for a home team in the tournament.
| Club Competition | Season | Lowest Home Score |
| England Premiership | 2020/21 | 3 |
| PRO 14 | 2020/21 | 3 |
| France Top 14 | 2020/21 | 0 |
| USA Major League Rugby | 2020/21 | 0 |
| European Champions Cup | 2020/21 | 7 |
| Super Rugby | 2020/21 | 3 |
Below is the lowest score for an away team in the tournament.
| Club Competition | Season | Lowest Away Score |
| England Premiership | 2020/21 | 3 |
| PRO 14 | 2020/21 | 6 |
| France Top 14 | 2020/21 | 0 |
| USA Major League Rugby | 2020/21 | 0 |
| European Champions Cup | 2020/21 | 3 |
| Super Rugby | 2020/21 | 6 |
Which club tournament has the lowest score?
In four out of the six club tournaments, all teams were able to eke out at least a single score.
This was usually a penalty. In the European Champions Cup, the lowest home score was a converted try.
The zero scores occurred in the French Top 14 and in Major League Rugby in the USA.
The two zero scores in the Top 14 were both “achieved” by Agen against Toulouse and La Rochelle. Agen really struggled in the competition that year and conceded big points in those two matches.
The two zero scores in the MLR came from the Houston Sabercats.
Disrupted season
Some competitions in the 2020/2021 season were interrupted due to the COVID pandemic.
I’ve excluded walk-over results where one club couldn’t fulfill the fixture due to COVID infections.
What Is The Highest Score In International Rugby?
There is more variation across international tournaments than at club level. I’ll start with the World Cup.
World Cup
The Rugby World Cup has taken place every four years since 1997. Here are the highest scores by the home team and the away team across the last three tournaments.
To be clear: these are independent numbers. The listed home and away scores were not in the same match.
Also, “Home” and “Away” have little meaning in the World Cup. In reality, all teams except the tournament holder are playing away from their home country.
| World Cup | Highest Home Score | Highest Away Score |
| 2019 | 71 | 45 |
| 2015 | 65 | 43 |
| 2011 | 87 | 27 |
The highest score in 2019 was run up by New Zealand against Namibia.
The highest score in 2015 was by Australia against Uruguay.
The highest score in 2011 was by South Africa against the doubly unfortunate Namibia.
Rugby Championship (Southern Hemisphere)
I’ve taken two seasons of the Rugby Championship because the number of countries involved keeps changing. 2018 and 2019 had Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
These are the highest score achieved at home and the highest score achieved away. The number are independent (i.e. not in the same match).
| Rugby Championship | Highest Home Score | Highest Away Score |
| 2019 | 47 | 46 |
| 2018 | 46 | 45 |
As you can see, the highest scores are very consistent.
Clearly, at least one team wasn’t affected by playing away from home – as we see a high max score away too.
These high scores are also a lot lower than the kind of blow-outs that are run up in the World Cup.
This is because the three Southern Hemisphere countries are all within the top eight teams in the world. South Africa and New Zealand are usually vying for the #1 spot.
In contrast, the World Cup has international teams from the second tier of world rugby. The highest scores in the tournament were against Namibia and Uruguay by top-tier teams.
The Rugby Championships of these seasons didn’t see that kind of mismatch.
Six Nations (Northern Hemisphere)
The Six Nations is the top-tier European competition with these national teams:
- England
- France
- Ireland
- Italy
- Scotland
- Wales
Here are the highest scores over three years achieved by a team playing at home and a team playing away:
| Six Nations | Highest Home Score | Highest Away Score |
| 2021 | 52 | 50 |
| 2020 | 50 | 34 |
| 2019 | 57 | 38 |
2019 and 2020 have quite a difference between the highest score achieved at home and away.
But 2021 is the exception. Suddenly, the highest away score is greatly increased.
So, I took a closer look at the 2021 results. The big away score is due to Italy performing poorly in their home games that season.
Usually, Italy puts up a good fight at home. So, why was 2021 an exception?
COVID may have played its part here. The 2021 season saw matches played in empty stadiums. This may have affected Italy more than the other national teams.
What Is The Lowest Score In International Rugby?
Again, I’ll start with the last three tournaments in the World Cup.
World Cup
Here are the lowest scores by a designated home team and a designated away team.
| World Cup | Lowest Home Score | Lowest Away Score |
| 2019 | 3 | 0 |
| 2015 | 5 | 0 |
| 2011 | 6 | 0 |
Each World Cup saw at least one zero score in the tournament.
Four matches had a zero score in 2019. The unfortunate sides were Russia (twice), Canada, and Samoa.
Only one match had a zero score in 2015. This was South Africa versus the USA, with the Americans being on the wrong side of the score.
Two matches had a zero score in 2011. Fiji had a big loss against Wales (66-0), while Namibia had an even bigger loss against the Springboks (87-0).
Rugby Championship (Southern Hemisphere)
Here is the lowest score achieved at home and the lowest score achieved away.
| Rugby Championship | Lowest Home Score | Lowest Away Score |
| 2019 | 13 | 10 |
| 2018 | 13 | 12 |
Interesting, there were no zero or 3 point results in the Southern Hemisphere championship.
I mentioned before that the three teams in these seasons were all in the top tier of World Rugby. This meant that none of them were completely under the cosh in any given match.
Six Nations (Northern Hemisphere)
Here are the lowest scores in the Six Nations over three years.
| Six Nations | Lowest Home Score | Lowest Away Score |
| 2021 | 6 | 10 |
| 2020 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 11 | 7 |
Interestingly, only 2020 had zero scores – one at home and one away.
Italy was responsible for them both: at home against Scotland and away against Wales.
Other Statistics
The scores we’ve shown are the single highest and lowest scores within a tournament. But these scores may not be representative across the tournament.
It just takes one big mismatch in the World Cup (like South Africa vs Namibia) to see a massive high score and zero low score.
So, it’s worth comparing these numbers to the average scores across the same tournaments. Check out our article on average scores in rugby.
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