Category: Premiership Rugby

• Bath 42-26 Gloucester
• Leaders score six tries against West Country rivals

Bath cemented their position as the team to catch in the Premiership race this season with an entertaining victory against their West Country rivals Gloucester. Assisted by the return of their chief playmaker, Finn Russell, after the Six Nations, the hosts scored six tries and, in a neat example of symmetry, are six points clear of the field with six regular-season fixtures to play.

It has already been a good month for Bath, who won the Premiership Cup last weekend to secure their first trophy for 17 years, and here was further evidence of the significant squad depth at their disposal.

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The English top flight has clouds on its horizon but it returns with Derby Weekend full of promise and intrigue

Premiership Rugby executives have been picking the brains of their counterparts at World Wrestling Entertainment of late. The bad news is that rugby union’s version of the Royal Rumble is not in the pipeline, the good is that there is no better organisation when it comes to selling its stars and the Premiership has evidently been doing its homework over how to follow suit.

The findings were instructive. Better to encourage profiles to develop organically than force growth and it was interesting to hear the Rugby Football Union (RFU) chief executive, Bill Sweeney, suggest recently that Netflix might have mis-stepped by opening this year’s Six Nations documentary with an episode all about Marcus Smith, Twickenham’s golden boy, buying a car. Rugby is not football was the gist of Sweeney’s argument in his latest podcast appearance.

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• Steve Diamond says bailout won’t keep Falcons alive
• Ealing and Coventry fail to meet promotion criteria

The survival of Newcastle Falcons as a professional rugby team will require more than just a one-off £4m bailout from the remaining nine Premiership clubs, according to a senior Falcons employee. Steve Diamond, their director of rugby, has confirmed Newcastle may have to negotiate a potential short-term loan to participate in next season’s Premiership, raising fresh doubts about the club’s longer-term viability.

Diamond has already been forced to put a freeze on player recruitment for next season following confirmation the Falcons have been discussing a possible central loan if they fail to secure fresh investment between now and mid-June. Their longtime backer Semore Kurdi has been actively seeking a buyer for the club since last year.

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• Trial to take place in two games next month
• Will Evans: ‘Players want this. You’ll see a better product’

The Premiership will trial away ­sections for supporters in two forthcoming matches in April, in an effort to improve atmospheres in top‑flight fixtures.

It is understood that for ­Saracens’ fixture against Gloucester on 19 April and Leicester’s match against ­Harlequins on 26 April, ­specific areas for visiting supporters to congregate in will be created.

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Bath centre should not have apologised for stopping match against Northampton after going down from clash of heads

A round of applause for Ollie Lawrence. Not for his apology after Bath’s last-gasp defeat by Northampton, which was entirely unnecessary, but for having the wherewithal to put his side into a winning position by demonstrating a streetwise streak all too seldom shown in elite rugby union.

To recap, Lawrence was pilloried by Northampton supporters for going down in instalments after a fairly innocuous clash of heads with Alex Mitchell in the last few minutes of Saints’ thrilling 35-34 win over Bath on Sunday. He took himself down to his knees, clutched his face and in doing so, made sure that the match was stopped, the incident reviewed.

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A rerun of last season’s final is a strong start to the year but the domestic game will soon be on hold for the Six Nations

There was a time when the first weekend of the new year meant immersion in what we kindly describe as rugby for the purists. The dark days between Christmas and spring are not easy for anyone, but they are largely responsible for giving rugby a bad name in this part of the world. Ten-man rugby, like asceticism, was pretty much invented for January.

And yet it is a concept that these days feels totally alien to the Premiership. An icy blast this weekend may yet precipitate a sudden tightening of coats, but such sobriety would represent quite the about-turn of current trends.

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• Northampton 61-0 Newcastle
• Davison and Pearson excel for champions

Trevor Davison scored two tries against his former club as Northampton returned to form with the thumping victory, running in nine tries in what was their final match of a memorable 2024.

The Saints had lost their last three league games, leaving them eighth and desperately needing to start picking up wins in order to make up ground on the teams above them. This was just the response the champions required as they look to retain the title they won back in June.

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• Bristol 0-38 Sale
• Sharks score four tries to move into playoff places

Sale stopped free-scoring Bristol in their tracks as they moved into the Premiership playoff places with a stunning 38-0 victory at Ashton Gate. Bristol had high hopes of going top above their West Country rivals Bath, but Sale did not allow them any time or space on the ball and Bears’ trademark running game hit the buffers.

The scrum-half Raffi Quirke set the tone when he breached Bristol’s defence inside three minutes, and the Sharks never looked back. Tom Roebuck added a second try before half-time, then the captain Ben Curry’s interception score sealed the deal midway through the third quarter, before Roebuck’s fellow wing Tom O’Flaherty secured a bonus point 14 minutes from time.

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The best and worst of the last 12 months and hopes for 2025 in our review of the year in rugby union

1 Antoine Dupont (France, Toulouse, France sevens)
2 Eben Etzebeth (South Africa)
3 Pieter-Steph du Toit (SA), Ox Nché (SA), Wallace Sititi (New Zealand), Ellie Kildunne (England)

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• Leicester 24-54 Bristol
• Gabriel Oghre and Kalaveti Ravouvou both score two tries

First, a simple stat: Bristol notched a 10th consecutive away win in the Premiership. A record for the league. Impressive. Second, another: they scored the most points any team have ever registered against Leicester at Welford Road, as much as any have ever scored against the Tigers anywhere in the Premiership. Impressive again, and this time beginning to hint at what went on here.

But, really, numbers are inadequate. In an extraordinary era of attacking rugby in the Premiership, Bristol must be ranked the most outrageous of them all. They should be listed as a national treasure. Rugby when played like this becomes an art, an entertainment that does not require any grounding in the sport to enjoy.

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• £29m in bailout loans not expected to be recovered
• England full-back Furbank doubtful for Six Nations

Premiership rugby clubs who “have been teetering on the edge” are set to come under further scrutiny by the government over the repayments of their £124m Covid bailout loans.

A report by the National Audit Office details how the Department for Culture, Media and Sport [DCMS] awarded 26% of its £474m loans to Premiership clubs, including £41.6m to Worcester, Wasps and London Irish, who have all since gone bust. According to the report, they are three of nine borrowers who in total received £46.1m and their collective demises mean that the DCMS does not expect to recover up to £29m in loans awarded.

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• Northampton 17-25 Gloucester
• Santi Carreras confounds Saints’ comeback hopes

We were denied the consummation of another comeback from the dead, but we were treated to the usual entertainment all the same. Northampton’s struggles continue, here surrendering a 17-match unbeaten run at home. Gloucester, though, after an exhilarating opening 40 minutes move ever closer to the playoff zone with a win high on charisma and grit.

Rory Hutchinson missed a late penalty for the Saints, which would have earned them a bonus point, but the champions could not recover from the boundless energy with which Gloucester ran them ragged in the first half. Both sides chucked the ball around with abandon, often to their own players, but quite often to the opposition. It just added to the breathlessness.

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Despite likely record ticket sales over Christmas, financial and physical health of clubs and players still a concern

With the timing of George Furbank on to a Fin Smith cutout pass, or that of any of the myriad attacking talents in English club rugby, the Premiership’s PR team ushered in the return of domestic fare this weekend by releasing a load of positive numbers. They refrained from deploying a load of exclamation marks too, but a few of those would have been perfectly consistent with the general vibe. The Premiership is back! And it’s never been better!

First, boringly, to debunk some of the hyperbole, most of the stats relating to the uptick in viewing figures and attendances across the first six rounds of this season were positioned relative to last. Apparently, cumulative audiences on TNT Sports are up by 30% on this stage of the season last year; 21,000 more matchday tickets have been sold, an increase of 15%. But the start of last season coincided with the end of a World Cup, which tends to diminish figures for the domestic game.

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• Former England back hits out at governing body
• Simon Halliday: ‘Clubs have been stalled and misled’

Top officials at the Rugby Football Union have been accused of betraying and misleading the game by the former England international who has been helping to negotiate the sport’s future below the Premiership. Simon Halliday, part of England’s 1992 Five Nations grand slam-winning side, has also called for a review into the “significant” failings of some RFU executive directors.

Halliday, who was chair of European Professional Club Rugby for seven years until 2021, has latterly been representing Championship clubs seeking greater funding and firm guarantees from the RFU over promotion and relegation. In an excoriating letter sent to the RFU’s chair, Tom Ilube, seen by the Observer, he alleges the existing tier 2 clubs “have been stalled, misled and misinformed” and warns recent poor governance “threatens the game” in England.

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International stage gears up to keep sport financially afloat but future plans will come at the cost of players and fans

Fans of English rugby – the real ones who follow the Premiership – could be forgiven for outrage at the suspension of the domestic game for the next few weeks. Such have been the remarkable matches coming at us from all angles in the first six rounds of the season, any resentment at November’s narrowing of focus on Twickenham, where tickets tend to be reserved for certain types, would be only natural.

As exhilarating as it may be, domestic rugby pretty much everywhere, but certainly in England, does not wash its face financially. So, over to the international game to try to keep everything afloat.

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