The Six Nations is well underway and, over on our brilliant new puzzles website, we’ve got our own way of celebrating the event: a special themed Cross Atlantic. We love threading themes throughout our crossword puzzles, whether it be tricky puns or the names of the characters of HBO’s The Last of Us. Don’t worry if you’re not a rugby fan: it’s solvable by absolutely anyone and sporting knowledge isn’t required.
The Cross Atlantic is the most recent addition to our stable of crosswords. As the name suggests, the puzzles are inspired by our friends on the other side of the pond. Whereas grids for our Quick, Cryptic and Toughie crosswords have lots of black cells, giving the puzzle a lattice-like look, Cross Atlantic grids are much denser, so that every letter entered is used in both an across and a down clue. This means that you don’t have to solve every clue to complete a puzzle. It’s my personal favourite puzzle on our puzzles website, just about beating the Mini and PlusWord.
Importantly, even though our Cross Atlantics look like American-style puzzles, the clues and answers are as British as it gets. You won’t be expected to know your FDA from your NBA, or your FBI from your CSI. It’s no coincidence that this rugby-themed puzzle is appearing on the same day as the Superbowl, after all.
You can expect some of the answers of today’s Cross Atlantic to relate to the countries within the Six Nations. The theme is signposted quite clearly; straight off the bat (to use a non-rugby sporting phrase), you might notice the following clue:
____ Nations, annual rugby event whose teams are represented in 17, 21 36, 43, 57 and 64 Across
It’s a good place to start and gives you a good starting point for those six other clues. It’s not as easy as popping in the country names however; there’s a little more to it than that. I won’t give anything else away as it might spoil the fun; why not tackle the challenge now? Pun definitely intended. Perhaps you can finish the puzzle before England take on Italy this afternoon; now, that would be impressive.
After trying out the Six Nations Cross Atlantic, why not let us know what you think? We aim to bring you a new themed puzzle each week, and to keep you guessing with the clues and the topics. You can tackle all our puzzles on our new website.
