History shows that the Premiership’s top two usually make the final but this year’s springtime run-in may be differentEven without the assistance of Covid-19 this would have been a unique season. Never before has a domestic campaign in England held its final at the end of June, while the inaugural Rainbow Cup, which commences this week, also involves a relative leap into the unknown. People talk about the potential benefits of summer rugby but, in truth, it is already here.With barely any rain in the forecast for the immediate future and surfaces already firming up, it is another reason to suspect the closing furlongs of the Premiership will be played at a cracking gallop. This will suit certain sides more...
Former England captain went through the rugby mill but came out the other side a better player and an unchanged manWatching Chris Robshaw play his last matches for Harlequins got me thinking about the first time I met him. It was early one winter morning in 2011, in a cafe near Twickenham. Six weeks earlier, England had embarrassed themselves at the World Cup in New Zealand. The fallout was long, and still going on, complicated by a series of leaks about what had gone wrong.Their captain, Lewis Moody, had already quit, and everyone was talking about who was going to take over from him. Tom Croft and Toby Flood were the two names that kept coming up. Then there was...
Tighthead prop has been with Harlequins since he was 12 but club could lose him in January and not be rewarded for all the good work they have doneIt is that time of the year when speculation starts to swirl over players’ futures. If anyone is going to move from one Premiership club to the next, officially they cannot be approached until January, but inevitably wheels are set in motion and Kyle Sinckler is the player who has got everyone talking at the moment.Sinckler’s situation raises two important questions: is it worth having an England international on a premium contract in your squad and are clubs compensated well enough for doing so? The first question is open to debate; the...
It was a difficult weekend for English clubs, with Irish provinces picking up a triple crown of victories over Premiership sidesIreland look like going into the Six Nations Larmour-plated. Joe Schmidt, who stood down as the national side’s head coach after the World Cup, never seemed to trust Jordan Larmour fully, certainly at full-back, but the 22-year old showed in Leinster’s emphatic victory over Northampton at Franklin’s Gardens that he is ready to take over from Rob Kearney, who was among the province’s replacements on Saturday. Larmour was the architect of Leinster’s first two tries, showing how deadly he can be in broken play if given just a trace of time and space, and he was part of a defensive...
Paul Gustard and Chris Boyd have managed to turn two ailing Premiership clubs around this season – Leicester, take noteWhen I look at Northampton and Harlequins I see two teams at the same stage of their journey. Both were coming to the end of dreadful seasons a year ago, going on to finish ninth and 10th respectively, but both came into the weekend on the same number of points and vying with each other for the last play-off spot. The common denominator is the impact their new coaches have made.If you were to look at the squads Chris Boyd and Paul Gustard inherited, you might wonder what they were doing at the bottom of the table this time last year...