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...
Lack of clarity about what will happen at the end of the season is unfair to clubs, players and spectatorsAnyone who watched the Premiership game between London Irish and Leicester on Sunday would have been struck by a few things. The first was the venue: how good it is to see the Exiles in their brand new home in Brentford, playing with a renewed sense of purpose. Even their snazzy green kit felt like progress, in contrast to Leicester’s away strip, which has prompted fans to ask if it was designed by a child with a set of crayons.Equally uneasy on the eye was Leicester’s modus operandi. Even in the closing moments, with possession in their own 22 and the...
Is it really such a crime for the centre to move overseas and expect to add to his 43 caps after leaving Leicester for reasons not of his own making?As he sat overlooking the Mediterranean, sipping a cafe au lait, Manu Tuilagi smiled wryly to himself. No need to jump into any harbours these days, he thought, pondering his lucrative move to the south of France after falling out with Leicester and enjoying a profitable stint in Japan. Didn’t moving to warmer climes do wonders for Jonny Wilkinson’s body back in the day? Perhaps he should have headed across the Channel years ago.Fact or fiction? The latter, for now, but you can see how the idea might one day appeal...
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...
Piers O’Conor and Mat Protheroe step up for Bristol, Newcastle left down and out while leaky Leicester require urgent repairsA third Premiership try of the season for Charles Piutau against Sale on Friday night, in what was his ninth league start of the campaign, was not enough to secure the win for Bristol. He has been blighted by injury throughout the season, and is obviously not alone in that, but while Bristol will have hoped for more game-time from their marquee signing, it is to their credit that they have enjoyed such a prosperous return to the Premiership having been denied his services for long parts of the campaign. In his place the youngsters Piers O’Conor and Mat Protheroe stepped...