This unique campaign has tested all the clubs but Bristol’s and Exeter’s players warrant strong representation in the XVThe final weekend of the English Gallagher Premiership regular season is nigh. It has been a uniquely demanding campaign, as much a mental challenge as a physical one on occasions. Here is The Breakdown’s standout team of 2020-21, selected only from players who have appeared in 10 league games or more …Full-back: Stuart Hogg (Exeter). Had Max Malins played more regularly he would have been hard to omit. Freddie Steward, Mike Brown, Tommy Freeman, Tom Parton and Tom Penny also deserve a mention. But in a busy season where he has had to juggle the Scotland captaincy with club duties, Hogg’s pace...
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...
Financial muscle is not the only indicator for success and the sport must avoid the mistakes made by football’s biggest clubsThe surest way to mess up in professional sport, as football has been finding, is to be guided solely by the money. Simply concentrate on the bottom line and you miss what really counts: the opinions of the people who serve up the product and those who consume it. Cut out those essential organs and even the smartest financial wheezes will struggle to prosper.It is a lesson with which the leading English football club shareholders have just been reacquainted and one which everyone in rugby should heed. Just as bigger is not necessarily better on the field, so financial muscle...
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...
The national coach says the Championship is ‘something I don’t really worry about’, but the state of a league that helps to shape tomorrow’s stars should be a concernPeople often wrongly assume rugby union is defined by weeks such as this. England v France, all the “le Crunch” hoopla, the wider Six Nations equation, the millions watching on television. It matters, of course it does, but – as any French supporter will tell you – it barely scratches the surface of what the game is truly about.It is a bit like announcing the only wine worth drinking is the stuff they pour (or used to) in Paris’s fancier restaurants. If, on the other hand, you hail from a small southern...