‘A special moment’: Russell revels in Bath glory as focus turns to Lions

Fly-half relishes end to his 10-year wait for a league title before homing in on British & Irish Lions challenge

Had Handrè Pollard done his homework he might have known what was coming – for Finn Russell has previous with intercepts when attacking Twickenham’s south stand. It was playing that way that he picked off Owen Farrell’s pass before streaking clear in the madcap 38-38 draw between England and Scotland in 2019. And he was at it again on Saturday, coming up with the decisive moment in Bath’s dogged Premiership final victory over Leicester.

On this occasion he did not finish off the try himself – you suspect he probably could have – instead flinging a nonchalant pass inside to the onrushing Max Ojomoh. In a final short on champagne moments, it put the fizz in Bath’s performance, extending their lead to 20-7 before a second penalty of the match proved pivotal in ensuring the 29-year wait for a Premiership title was over.

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Bath hold off Leicester to win Premiership title after 23-21 victory – as it happened

Bath ended their 29 year wait with victory at Twickenham

4 mins. Leicester win said scrum and there’s another one a minute later after more poor Batch handling. This second one brings down the full malevolence of the Tigers pack to crumble the Bath eight and bring about a penalty. Pollard pings a beautiful touchfinder deep into attacking territory.

2 mins. The crafty kick off is very nearly gathered by Cracknell, but the ball ends up pinging about a bit before Spencer gets his hands on it and punts it away. There’s a few carries by Leicester in their own half before a knock-on brings about the first scrum of the match.

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Rugby’s great wanderer Christian Wade: ‘You don’t say no to Wigan’

Having previously swapped rugby union for NFL, Wade shares his excitement for a fresh challenge after a ‘humbling’ start to life in rugby league

For a man who has done it all in rugby union and experienced the bright lights of the NFL, the glint in Christian Wade’s eye when asked what drew him to a new challenge with Wigan suggests this was an opportunity he couldn’t miss.

It has been some fortnight for one of the Premiership’s all-time greats. His farewell appearance for Gloucester – and perhaps in rugby union altogether – ended with victory against Northampton and two tries. The second of those was a sensational long-range finish in the dying embers of that game which would have caught the eye of any Wigan supporters keenly checking out what their new signing is capable of.

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Welcome to the Gallagher Prem: English rugby’s top flight rebrands and targets US

  • Reset will promote ‘gladiatorial nature’ of club game

  • Prem targets playing in US in run-up to 2031 World Cup

Premiership Rugby has rebranded England’s top division as the Gallagher Prem as part of a wide-ranging reboot that includes plans to take a fixture to the United States in the coming years and kicking off next season on a Thursday night.

Unperturbed by the existential threat posed by the R360 breakaway league, PRL on Saturday relaunches the Premiership on the day that Bath face Leicester in the final at Twickenham.

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Master motivators put 90s chart-toppers Bath and Leicester back on Premiership final stage

Rival coaches Johann van Graan and Michael Cheika have rebuilt their sides along similar lines but Bath are favourites

It has been a while but the old firm of English club rugby are finally back. Between 1978 and 1997 Bath and Leicester collectively won 15 national knockout trophies and over the first 15 years of the league’s existence they claimed 12 titles between them. Their reunion at Twickenham is akin to those other 90s chart-toppers, Oasis and Blur, dusting down their favourite guitars and appearing on stage together.

The temptation is to dive head first into a foaming tub of nostalgia and wallow in the rekindled rivalry. If anyone had predicted in 1996 that Bath would not win another domestic title in the next 29 years they would have been laughed out of the convivial old Rec clubhouse. Leicester, similarly, thought the ABC Club and the Tigers’ steely winning mentality would live for ever.

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Super Ted or Superman? Hill’s ‘different game’ key for Bath in Premiership final

Flanker Ted Hill has been called ‘a freak’ by his captain as the 26-year-old waits for another chance with England

Is it a bird or a plane? No, it’s probably “SuperTed”. If Bath win this year’s Premiership final the chances are their rangy, athletic flanker Ted Hill will have played a prominent role. This week his captain, Ben Spencer, called him a “freak” and various seasoned judges have compared him with illustrious former back-rowers ranging from Kieran Read and Jerome Kaino to Pierre Spies and Tom Croft.

During this year’s Six Nations Maro Itoje suggested similarities between the 26-year-old and “Captain America or Superman” and suggested he was “a man carved out of Greek stone”. Bath’s head coach, Johann van Graan, believes likewise. “I think he’s one of the best players in the league and his athletic ability is special. There’s not a lot he can’t do, really.”

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Owen Farrell agrees return to Saracens as player-coach on five-year deal

  • Fly-half endured torrid season at Racing 92

  • Farrell agrees summer return including a pay cut

Owen Farrell has agreed an immediate return to Saracens after a torrid season with Racing 92. The 33-year-old former England captain will join his boyhood club as a player-coach this summer on a five-year deal.

Saracens have secured Farrell’s signing after agreeing a compensation package with Racing 92 of about €200,000 (£170m) – significantly less than the €500,000 paid by the French club last year – and reaching a deal over personal terms. Farrell had signed a two-year deal with the Top 14 side but endured an injury-hit season and informed the club of his desire to return to the Premiership towards the end of the campaign.

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An ugly pack and backs worth paying to watch: Bath have taken us back to the 1990s | Andy Bull

There was a time when the team playing at the Rec were the dominant force in English club rugby and there are signs they may be on the rise once again

The first thing anyone who cares says when they find out you’re a sports journalist is to ask whether or not you were at whichever big game was on that weekend. The second, after you’ve explained, apologetically, that you don’t actually follow football, is usually an awkward pause. There are all sorts of reasons why you may prefer any other sort of sport, but after 20 years of variations on this conversation, I’ve learned that unless you want to come across like someone who insists actually they prefer art-house cinema and free jazz, it’s best to have a straightforward explanation. Mine is that I grew up in Bath.

They do play football in Bath, out at Twerton Park. The club have never been in the Football League (right now they’re in National League South), and most weeks they draw a crowd of around a thousand. Which isn’t so very many more than you’ll find crowded around the stone balustrades of the city’s parade gardens, trying to peer across the weir and see into the Rec when the rugby club have a home game. Bath’s football has always been bad. But in the 80s and 90s Bath’s rugby was so good that the brand still stands for something, even after they have been mediocre for a large part of the past 30 years.

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Jarome Luai called up by NSW Blues to replace injured Mitch Moses for State of Origin Game 2

  • Wests Tigers five-eighth to rekindle partnership with Nathan Cleary

  • Moses sent for scans after injuring calf in training session

Jarome Luai will replace Mitch Moses as NSW’s five-eighth for the second State of Origin match after a calf strain dashed Moses’s hopes of playing. Moses pulled up sore while running the ball during a training session at NSW’s Blue Mountains camp on Thursday, injuring the same calf that troubled him earlier this year.

The Blues have sent Moses for scans on the injury that delivers a blow to their hopes of sealing a series victory by winning Origin II in Perth on Wednesday.

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How Brian Ashton led Bath to double in 1995-96 while teaching full-time

Team featuring Jeremy Guscott and Mike Catt won Bath’s most recent title before professional era changed the game

It doesn’t take long to realise that one of England’s greatest attacking minds is still as sharp as ever. Asked what is keeping him busy at the moment, Brian Ashton, now 78, shoots back: “Staying alive.” There are many ways to emphasise how long it has been since Bath won the title but a two-word riposte from the man who led them to the league and cup double in 1995-96 does it better than most.

It is well documented that the dawn of professionalism was not kind to Bath, how it both enabled their rivals to catch up and derailed the country’s dominant side in the following years. As the former full-back Jon Callard has put it: “Bath got lost in professionalism, sometimes players forgot the value of the shirt.” In the final throes of the amateur era, however, Bath were the trailblazers.

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The Breakdown | Are you not entertained? Thrilling club finales show tribal rugby at its best

While financial instability and welfare dominate discussions, Premiership attendances are firmly on the up

The final week of every domestic season is always an indicator of rugby’s underlying health. Are supporters crawling over their grandmothers in their haste to buy a finals ticket? Is the entertainment value of the product trending upwards year on year? And are there collective signs of rising positivity among players, tournament organisers and fans alike?

These are especially relevant questions right now amid all the exciting/delusional (take your pick) chatter about a possible breakaway global franchise league. And before we contemplate this year’s answers let’s hope those looking to flog the concept of a Formula One-style circus featuring the world’s top players were watching last Friday night’s game in Bath.

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Wigan great Billy Boston knighted in historic first for rugby league

  • Accolade has never been given to a rugby league player

  • Boston, 90, a pioneering black figure in British sport

The Wigan Warriors legend Billy Boston has become the first rugby league player in the sport’s 130-year history to receive a knighthood.

Rugby league has never had a player awarded the highest accolade in an honours list, with calls increasing in recent years thanks to the fundraising done away from the field by people such as Kevin Sinfield – who is expected to be given a similar honour at some stage – and the late Rob Burrow. But Boston’s name has also always been high on the list of candidates overlooked.

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Rugby’s breakaway R360 league labelled ‘delusional’ by leading TV sport executive

  • R360 targeting ‘best of the best’ 300 male players

  • Premiership does not see franchise league as threat

A leading executive at TNT Sports has dismissed the proposed R360 breakaway league as “delusional” while Premiership executives have played down the rebels’ threat, insisting rugby “doesn’t need pop-ups”.

Confirming that R360 has not approached TNT Sports about its plans for a globetrotting league that targets the world’s best players on lucrative contracts, Andrew Georgiou – president and managing director of WBD Sports Europe – joined Premiership Rugby in questioning the commercial and economic viability of the breakaway league.

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Marc Sneyd won his personal battle but Warrington lost the cup final

Sneyd picked up his third Lance Todd Trophy but his opposite number brought home the bacon for Hull KR

By No Helmets Required

Having been voted the man of the match in three Challenge Cup finals, Marc Sneyd should be considered one of the great half-backs of his generation. But, having now lost as many finals as he has won, and been repeatedly overlooked by England, the 34-year-old is in danger of leaving the game without the silverware his consistent class deserves.

Moments before Hull KR inflicted a last-gasp 8-6 defeat on his Warrington side, Sneyd snared 31 of the 37 votes from Wembley’s press benches. The other six went to his opposite number, Mikey Lewis, who then kicked the winning conversion with less than two minutes left. Sneyd undoubtedly came out on top in the battle of the half-backs, schooling a player a decade his junior.

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State of Origin 2 teams: Daly Cherry-Evans dropped in bombshell Maroons move

  • Queensland captain expected to make way for Tom Dearden

  • Beau Fermor also dropped with Kurt Capewell to step in

Queensland’s Daly Cherry-Evans has become the first State of Origin captain dropped mid-series this century, as one of several huge Billy Slater selection calls. Slater will name a 20-man squad for Origin II on Monday morning, but Tom Dearden is expected to replace Cherry-Evans in the No 7 jersey in Perth next Wednesday.

Beau Fermor is the other player dropped after the Maroons’ series-opening 18-6 loss at Suncorp Stadium, with Kurt Capewell set to replace him. Kurt Mann is then expected to take Dearden’s spot on the Maroons’ bench, after acting as 18th man in game one.

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