Category: Premiership Rugby

• £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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Newcastle head to Sale on the back of a 24-game losing streak with a pressing need to attract a fresh audience

It is supposed to be a snarling northern “derby” but, in reality, Sale’s Friday night date with Newcastle is a case of friends reunited. The Sharks’ Alex Sanderson and the Falcons’ Steve Diamond take their respective eight-year-olds to the same swimming class every week and have been mates for so long they know pretty much exactly what the other is plotting.

Sanderson, in particular, has been warning his squad they will need to be up for the fight against their bottom placed, winless opponents: “They’re already talking survival, food on plates and roofs over heads; we’ve got to match their emotional levels.” Diamond, for his part, has been busy stripping down his side’s tactics to the barest essentials to counter Sale’s big pack and territory based game. “We’re not even competitive at the moment,” he says. “There’s still players here who don’t understand what we’re trying to do on game day.”

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• Bath 26-36 Bristol
• Argentinian helps earn bonus point in first half

The days of low-scoring West Country derbies have gone the way of cassette tapes and Ceefax. A week ago, Bristol scored 41 points and still contrived to lose at home to Gloucester and last January they beat Bath 57-44 at Ashton Gate. This cracking game was not quite the same crazy whirl but the scoreboard still revolved at times like a fruit machine in Las Vegas.

When the music stopped and the nine tries were finally collated it added up to another hugely satisfying away day for Bristol, rewarding a consistently vibrant performance full of movement and purpose.

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Saracens’ new fly-half is not daunted at the prospect of following in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor

Certain acts are tougher to follow than others. Imagine, say, playing Hamlet at the Old Vic with the ghost of Sir Laurence Olivier on your shoulder. Or succeeding Sean Connery as the next James Bond. As he prepares for his first home league game as Owen Farrell’s heir apparent, Saracens’ new fly-half, Fergus Burke, knows he is stepping into some exalted shoes.

Which, of course, presents an instant dilemma: do you try to be a carbon copy of your predecessor – give or take the Wigan accent – or resolve to be your own man? Sitting in St Albans, his freshly adopted home town, the 25-year-old Burke has already made his mind up. “Stepping into someone else’s role … there’s obviously a bit of expectation. I just try and park that. Owen was an awesome player and one of the best this club has seen. But I’ve got to be my own player. I can’t be thinking too much about what’s been.”

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Seven of the 10 Premiership clubs are balance sheet insolvent but all of rugby must change, says James Haskell

Rarely has the gap between how rugby would like to be perceived and the unvarnished reality felt wider than it did on a grey midweek lunchtime in the City of London. The Honourable Artillery Company – “Turn right just past the cannon, sir” – remains a seriously valuable piece of real estate which made it an interesting choice of venue from which to launch a coruscating critique of the financial state of English club rugby.

It was certainly instructive to sit among seated rows of money men and lawyers listening to assorted experts, academics and – boom, tish! – the former England flanker James Haskell assessing the findings of a newly published independent report into the health of the Premiership’s finances. Interrupted only by the occasional chiming of a splendid grandfather clock, it was the most contemporary of debates in the most old school of settings.

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• James Haskell fears rugby ‘heading for precipice’
• Ten clubs collectively lost around £30.5m in 2022-23

Seven of the 10 English Premiership clubs are balance sheet insolvent, according to an independent financial industry report which has prompted a stark warning that unless the sport embraces change it is “heading for a precipice”.

A comprehensive study analysing the financial sustainability of all the Premiership sides, unveiled by the leading UK corporate recovery and insolvency firm Leonard Curtis, concluded that only three clubs – Leicester, Northampton and Gloucester – would be viable without the backing of wealthy owners and said they must face “some harsh realities”.

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