The directors of rugby and captains of the 12 Premiership clubs who were present at Thursday’s launch of the new season were unanimous that the 20th year of the tournament would be the most competitive yet. Well-off Bristol have replaced London Irish; Bath have reacted to finishing ninth last season by recruiting the former New Zealand back-row Todd Blackadder as director of rugby and adding Taulupe Faletau, Luke Charteris and Kahn Fotuali’i to their squad; while another west country club, Gloucester, who have finished in the top half of the table once in the past five years, believe they have found the formula to end their inconsistency.
Gloucester have wallowed while Exeter, their rivals from further down the M5, have flourished. The Chiefs made the top four for the first time last season, boasting the best defensive record in the league, and reached the final only to freeze in the opening 35 minutes against Saracens, who went on to record the European and Premiership double.
“We are not going to over-focus on that defeat because we know our foundations are very strong,” says the Exeter head coach, Rob Baxter. “We do not need to shake things up massively. We need to be comfortable where we are, get better at what we do and make sure the players are mature as they head in the right direction. Let’s stick at it and see how far we can take this thing.”
Baxter is expecting Henry Slade to have a big year having returned to full fitness after suffering a serious ankle injury last season. The 23-year-old has played at 10, 12 and 13 for the Chiefs and was namechecked by Eddie Jones several times before he returned to action. When he did, the England head coach was critical of his performances although Jones did take the player on the tour to Australia.
Baxter says: “I could not believe then that people were not saying how amazing it was to see Henry playing after suffering a dislocated, fractured ankle, an injury that has ended a number of careers. He suffered it halfway through the season and was playing in a final at the end of it. All I heard was that he was not performing well as everyone focused on it the wrong way round.
“I think Eddie looked at it from Henry’s game time on the field instead of it being the final part of his return from an injury that almost wrote him off. I was a little surprised at that but at the same time I wasn’t. A lot of what Eddie does is about challenging players, expecting high standards. There is nothing wrong with that but, when people said negative things about Henry after his return, they lacked perspective. He is in fantastic physical shape and in a great place mentally. I expect him to have a fantastic season.”
Baxter believes the Premiership has never been more entertaining but fears that a drive to increase the time the ball is in play threatens one of the sport’s fundamentals: that it is a game for all shapes and sizes. Referees have been ordered to ensure that the ball comes out of scrums more quickly to avoid games being blighted by multiple resets.
“Everyone in the Premiership is getting used to playing superb rugby, as we saw last year,” Baxter says. “To win a game, you have to plan to score more than 20 points, which makes it an exciting league. That is why we have to be careful over the development in the game and the talk of getting the ball in play more and depowering scrums.
“If you start making props run around players, you take the space out of a game. If you have 15 quick, athletic people, where will the mismatches come? I know reset scrums are a bane but, if the pay-off is that your props become flankers, what game will we create? Rugby league, which we don’t want.
“At the moment, you need big props and second rows. The fact they are on the field creates attacking options. Three or four tough scrums take it out of the tight five, and while they might take five minutes, it could help create a couple of tries. We have to be careful not to create a game where the ball is in play for 60 minutes but they involve players running into each other or kicking because there is no space. People seem not to want to see the bigger picture. We need a broader spectrum on this rather than try to create a perfect game of rugby in which you cannot score. There is not much wrong with rugby which works because it is a game for all shapes and sizes.”
Wasps were the Premiership’s leading scorers in the past two seasons and have added to their firepower by recruiting the South Africa full-back Willie le Roux and the Australia utility back Kurtley Beale, along with the England internationals Kyle Eastmond and Danny Cipriani. Le Roux will arrive from Japan in the new year while Beale is expected to return from injury at the end of November.
“Our supporters will not want to hear this but this is the last year of major recruitment by us,” says the club’s director of rugby, Dai Young. “By that I mean 13 in and 13 out is too many. It is a third of your squad going every year, which has been the case for the last three or four seasons. You pretty much start again each time and we want to get down to three or four in and out a year. Saracens do that and they have the blueprint, building on things year by year.
“You need continuity and we have signed up 90% of the squad on two- or three-year contracts. It does not mean we will not be signing players next year, just not as many.”
