Bath should give England’s Eddie Jones food for thought, Northampton respond after being labelled soft and Newcastle command attentionThe Premiership is an unforgiving place for teams who start slowly. Bottom-placed Worcester have lost their opening two games and injuries are already beginning to bite. Losing their strongest scrummager, Nick Schonert, to a suspected broken ankle is a major blow and the Warriors are down to two fit fly-halves with the league season barely a fortnight old. To compound matters, England’s Ben Te’o has an ongoing arm problem which has forced him off prematurely in both his team’s games to date. “He’s got a plate in it and it’s sore,” said Gary Gold, Worcester’s director of rugby. “Every time he gets...
Exeter’s Premiership victory has won plaudits as has Saracens’ in the Champions Cup but British & Irish Lions players need careful management next seasonExeter Chiefs. Saracens are back-to-back European champions but neither they nor Wasps could topple the Chiefs when it mattered domestically. While the Lions could yet ambush this category they will do well to equal the ceaseless positivity and collective spirit of English rugby’s new market leaders. Robert Kitson Related: Alex Goode try seals Champions Cup final victory for Saracens over Clermont Related: Scarlets score six tries to sweep aside Munster and win Pro12 title Related: Wasps go to Premiership final as Josh Bassett’s late try floors Leicester Related: World Rugby ‘disappointed’ with Northampton over George North injury...
The most gripping Premiership final proved a more accurate reflection of English rugby than any Twickenham internationalThe Premiership has known some staggering finales but never such a roller-coaster of emotions. Chiefs looked to have taken control when they led 14-3 after just 28 minutes; for Wasps to respond with 17 unanswered points was remarkable. Exeter’s storming response, with Wasps’ having to repel a 34-phase attack at a crucial juncture of the second half, also summed up both sides’ unbelievable resolve and collective spirit. Extra-time, with both sides on their last legs, was almost too tense to watch even before Gareth Steenson’s clinching penalty. A place-kicking contest would have been horrendous. Related: Exeter and Wasps serve up final thriller to show...
Some have doubted the Premiership’s need for play-offs but Gareth Steenson’s last-gasp winning kick was a fittingly dramatic end to justify their existenceWhat a final, they kept saying, and they were right, but these finals always are. Folk have of late noted that we will not need play-offs any more, when they stretch the domestic season to 10 months, smoothing out those crinkly weekends which overlap with the international game.Yes we will. This is addictive. To be at Twickenham in high May is to see English club rugby at its best, and there is no reason to think it will be any different in high June. This time, as apparently every time, two superb, attack-minded teams cut each other up...
Exeter still on the up, Wasps feel the noise, Scarlets in nod to Super Rugby and Leigh Halfpenny provides good news for Lions and Richard CockerillThe Premiership semi-final victory over Saracens was another coaching triumph for Rob Baxter and his management team at Sandy Park. It was not so much revenge for last year’s defeat in the final at Twickenham as confirmation that the Chiefs have improved since then, learning from each new experience in their remarkable rise this decade. Saracens have become the most proficient team in Europe at attacking from set pieces, able to create space out wide and score tries, a quality that helped them defeat Munster and Clermont Auvergne in the latter stages of the European...