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Rugby union: talking points from the weekend's Premiership action

Sam Jones shines after England calls, the Kingsholm pitch works against Gloucester, and have Leicester become too friendly for their own good?If table-topping Wasps maintain their current league average by sticking 40 points on second-placed Saracens this weekend, they really will establish themselves as the team to catch this season. England will also take notice, particularly if Sam Jones and Nathan Hughes enjoy themselves against Billy Vunipola and co as much as they did against a second-best Harlequins side. Wasps’ director of rugby, Dai Young, compares Jones, 24, to a young Richard Hill and believes he could fill the openside flanker role if required in the autumn internationals: “He could do the job that [James Haskell] does well … he’s...

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Rugby union: talking points from the weekend's Premiership action

Bristol’s trials continue, Fotuali’i shines again for Bath and Saints show title credentials even in losingLeicester sit in the top four having won two of their three opening games but they could just as easily be bottom staring at three opening defeats. As was the case in their opening game at Gloucester they should have lost at Newcastle, saved only by a mishit drop-goal by Joel Hodgson with the game’s final kick and a plethora of other missed Falcons opportunities. “At times they made us look very ordinary and there were also times when we made ourselves look very ordinary,” admitted Richard Cockerill, the Tigers’ director of rugby. Newcastle can at least take some solace from the manner in which...

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