The first Championship game I ever covered was in Paris in 1996 when Thomas Castaignède knocked over a drop goal to win it before sticking his tongue out as he celebrated.
When Ireland played France in Paris this year I was able to work with Thomas and speak to him about that moment.
The scary thing is that it’s been 21 years now since I first got involved with the Championship, first as the rugby producer for Five Live, then moving across to the television side.
I’d joined the BBC as a trainee in 1988 then worked on local radio in Sussex before moving across to sport.
I was offered the job of becoming rugby producer in 1995 just after the World Cup, taking over from Nick Mullins in the role. At the time it was quite a big deal for a woman to be offered a role like that, and for my first press conference at Twickenham I was pretty much the only woman there who wasn’t serving coffee.
Thankfully things have changed a lot since then, and I’m so used to being in and around the teams that everyone is used to it by now. When I first got that job I knew very little about rugby, but I came in with a journalist’s background so I knew more about news.
I was very keen on sport, but more hockey, which I was still playing regularly until I moved up to London.
I’d like to think I’ve kept the news side of things, and now when I do post-match interviews and media work I feel it’s my responsibility to ask tough questions when they are needed.
It’s not always easy of course, I remember preparing to speak to Stuart Lancaster after the 30-3 loss in Wales in 2013, and you could tell in the moments before we went live how disappointed he was at how it had gone.
Those times are difficult, but I always felt that you still had to ask the questions people want answering. The day your first question is: “So how do you feel?” That’s when it’s time to stop. It might not endear you to everybody but it’s the way I was taught.
There have been some incredible moments along the way – looking back at 2003, when England finally won the Grand Slam under Sir Clive Woodward in Ireland.
We were able to do the interviews on the pitch as the players were celebrating and that was as special occasion.
It was also a real privilege to cover the Ireland Grand Slam in 2009 when they finally got over the line. I spoke to Ronan O’Gara about his drop goal and he said all he could think was that it was too early.
He was worried they had left Wales too much time, and it almost proved to be the case with Stephen Jones late missed penalty. It was great to see players like Brian O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell and Ronan O’Gara get that title. They had been so good for such a long time and just missed out.
Everything has changed this season with ITV coming onboard and it has changed my role a little with the games being split between the two channels. We have eight games this year, with all the home matches in France, Wales and Scotland, while ITV get England, Ireland and Italy home games.
Next year they will get seven matches and we’ll get eight but just because we don’t cover games live doesn’t mean we aren’t preparing for each match.
In round three we had Wales v France live, but I’d been down during the week to speak to the England camp and at half-time, which is a little longer these days, we had an interview to run with them.
We’ve also got Rugby Special back on a Sunday night so we’re still very busy and the atmosphere around the grounds seems to be the same as ever.
Sonja McLaughlan is a pitch side reporter for BBC One’s coverage of the Six Nations and presents The Matt Dawson Rugby Show with Matt Dawson on BBC Radio 5 live every Thursday evening before a game weekend throughout the championship. She was speaking to Sportsbeat’s Paul Eddison. The Six Nations will be live across BBC and ITV. Watch France v England live on BBC One, on Saturday 19 March.
