It is three years since Quins, Northampton or Bath made the Premiership play-offs and anxiety is growing at these traditionally big clubsAt this stage of the domestic rugby season the table seldom lies. It is not enough simply to blame under-achievement on injuries or match officials or the weather. If, after seven months of league rugby, a high-profile, well-backed club is wallowing in lower-table mediocrity the only remaining place to look is the bathroom mirror.Perhaps the defining aspect of this year’s Premiership season has been the unusual number of big sides conducting major inquests with three weekends of the campaign left to play. The bottom three clubs – London Irish, Worcester and Northampton – had already parted company with their...
Ellis Genge impresses in the heat of battle, Saracens end tough week on a high and Marland Yarde spearheads Sale’s late pushLoosehead prop is not a problem position for England with Mako Vunipola backed up by Joe Marler, but Beno Obano and Ellis Genge are World Cup pretenders and rivals for a place in the World Cup squad next year. They stood out at Twickenham in their different ways: Genge was dominant in the scrum, pulverising Shaun Knight to create the platform for Leicester’s victory, while Obano was prominent in the loose, making 15 tackles and carrying hard to make more metres with ball in hand than any other Bath forward on a day when Leicester dominated possession. Genge has...
Bath are facing catastrophe, Ellis Genge offers grounds for English optimism and Josh McNally makes a poignant returnAnother home defeat in the Premiership for Bath, whose season is now in grave danger of unravelling. It may have taken a late Joe Simmonds penalty for Exeter but after a bright start to the campaign Bath’s inconsistency has been their downfall and they occupy eighth place in the table. They will most likely have to win all four of their remaining matches to reach the play-offs and failure to qualify for the Champions Cup would be an unmitigated disaster. Bath have not been helped by injuries but there have been times this season when Todd Blackadder’s frustration at his players’ inability to...
Manu Tuilagi needs more time to recapture his best form while Wales’s Josh Adams is at the top of his game and will deserve a first Six Nations call-upBecause it is Manu Tuilagi, the question had to be asked, but if he were picked for England now it would be more on faith than form, notwithstanding the cheeky and acrobatic manner in which he leapt over a writhing mass of bodies to score Leicester’s third try in their victory against London Irish at Welford Road on Saturday. Tuilagi had also played a part in their second try, but that was more in the vein of a Keystone Cop. “We need to have a realistic view of Manu,” said Matt O’Connor,...
Harlequins’ sick list grows, Wasps’ Thomas Young looks to land of his father’s, Rob Baxter’s Exeter side pass ‘character test’ and Gloucester get one over BathJohn Kingston paused as he mulled over whether to put a precise figure on the list of unavailable Harlequins players for this match. Twenty-eight. How many of those would be anywhere near the first team is difficult to discern but, regardless, it feels an astonishing number. The guy subbing the report that included the figure had to ring to double-check it was not a mistake. Whether this tells us anything new about the nature of rugby today will be debated long and hard. As will whether Marland Yarde was included in the 28. It looks...