As the squad of a generation breaks up, Exeter travel to La Rochelle with their eyes on a Champions Cup finalThey know a little bit about vintage years in Bordeaux, where Exeter hope to savour a famous victory over La Rochelle on Sunday. This has not been the smoothest of seasons for the Chiefs but there is still time to transform perceptions. If few people are tipping England’s last men standing as probable Champions Cup finalists, that is exactly how they prefer it.The more you examine the background to the fixture, in fact, the more intriguing it becomes. Does anyone remotely think Sam Simmonds, Jack Nowell, Stuart Hogg or any of the Chiefs’ other departing gladiators are not desperate for...
Financial woes and player welfare concerns abound but rugby union remains a compelling spectacle when everything clicksEvery now and again on social media a video clip will emerge of a lonely surfer trying to catch a skyscraper-high wave off the coast of Portugal. Time it right and the long ride down is truly epic. Get it slightly wrong and the consequences of that misjudgment do not bear thinking about.In many ways the 2022-23 Premiership season feels broadly similar. Increasingly there are jagged financial rocks everywhere and the game’s physicality continues to make it unsuitable for the faint of heart. Continue reading...
Four key questions before leaders Leicester travel to champions Harlequins and Saracens host Exeter this weekendThe biggest compliment you can currently pay Leicester is that they are playing like an international team. Steve Borthwick has worked for long enough at the right hand of Eddie Jones in Japan and England to know the importance of being tough to play against as well as supremely fit. He has also gathered some shrewd tactical lieutenants around him and the uplift in Tigers’ efficiency has been conspicuous. Continue reading...
This season’s Premiership winners battled back from the brink time and time again before vanquishing Exeter in a hectic finalIt goes without saying this was an epic. Another. And in this era of the comeback, who should be crowned as the English champions but a team that had seemed in pieces only a few months ago, their coach gone, their form ruined? Harlequins became English rugby’s unlikeliest champions – not the first to prevail from fourth place, perhaps, but undoubtedly the first to have found themselves in such seemingly hopeless positions throughout this season, right up to last weekend and the 28-0 deficit that needs no introduction.Where is Paul Gustard now? Well, polishing some unlikely silverware of his own, actually,...
No one has scored more than 17 tries in the top flight since 1998 but Exeter’s No 8 could be about to enter the record booksxOne of the most sought-after achievements in club rugby celebrated its 23rd birthday this week. On 17 May 1998 the diminutive but distinctly rapid Richmond winger Dominic Chapman touched down twice at Sale’s Heywood Road to extend his try-scoring tally for the season to 17 in 22 Premiership games. It has since been equalled by Wasps’ Christian Wade in 2016-17 but never overtaken.Now, at long last, Chapman’s peak could soon be eclipsed. Exeter’s Sam Simmonds has already scored 16 tries in 17 league matches with four regular season rounds left. He and his team face...