Men’s rugby union in the northern hemisphere is cranking up once again. On Friday the Premiership and the United Rugby Championship resume, the former opening with a rerun of last season’s final when champions Northampton travel to Bath.
On the first Saturday of the season iIt almost goes without saying that these are swirling, uncertain times for rugby, a sport seemingly in perpetual flux. The dust has settled for now on the sudden loss to financial ruin of three Premiership teams, and the rest of the game is taking stock. Where will we be when the curtain falls on the third Lions Test in Sydney, not far short of 11 months hence?
Here are a few areas where answers may or may not materialise between now and June…
Law changes
Still we tinker. Who knows why, given the number of breathtaking encounters. The community game around the world has been playing with a lower legal tackle height, and the pressure is on to apply it to the elite game, too. The trouble is, law trials are all but impossible in the elite game, given cross-border competition, so when one tournament changes, they all have to. That moment is coming soon.
Structure of competitions
The Premiership has never been the biggest money-spinner – that has always been the Top 14 – but until quite recently it fancied itself more than it really had any right to. There is a reckoning that must follow the loss of three of its number. A glance at the ins and outs of players reveals a significantly longer list for each club in the out column than the in.
The Premiership enjoys some certainty through an improved deal with the Rugby Football Union over the next eight seasons, but less over the extent to which it will be able to deploy its principal assets, the England players. The quality of the rugby continues to astonish. Anything like financial security, though, is as elusive as the very best of the players.
Rumours abound that the English might be interested in a British league. Tellingly, it was the United Rugby Championship that was quick to deny the rumours. Emboldened by the incorporation of the waxing South African teams and an average attendance that continues to climb to just 1,600 shy of the Premiership’s, the younger competition is flexing its muscles.
How to watch
All change here as well. TNT Sports will still show the Premiership, although it is believed to be paying less for it, even allowing for the loss of three clubs to the fixture list. The whole point of the Premiership ceding a 27% share of its central income to the private equity firm CVC in 2018 was that the latter might engineer a massive uplift in marketing and television revenue. So far that does not seem to have happened, leaving English clubs, most of whom spent the upfront payment from CVC on surviving lockdown, in an even more parlous state.
TNT has given up on the Champions Cup altogether, which has now been picked up by Premier Sports, which also broadcasts the URC and Top 14. But TNT is taking up the Autumn Nations Series internationals, relieving Amazon Prime of the honour.
International game
There is a sense that rugby union is marking time with these deals until the Nations Championship starts in 2026. In the meantime, the traditional November window should provide intriguing fare.
This year’s edition of the Rugby Championship is all but sewn up by South Africa with two rounds to spare, although Argentina in second (yes, second, ahead of the All Blacks) entertain the Springboks on Saturday. The Pumas’ 67-27 win over Australia in Santa Fe, achieved in dazzling fashion, is but the latest indignity heaped on the Wallabies.
The Lions
Or the Whip-Round for Australia tour. Forget the loss of clubs, what happens when an actual union goes out of business? This tour is timely in that regard. Without it and the World Cup in 2027, there might be some doubts over how long Rugby Australia could soldier on. But the Lions is another institution uncertain of its place in the scheme of things, an amateur concept gradually squeezed from all sides by the professional era. And it is a player welfare liability.
After the hideous dirge in lockdown South Africa, the Lions need this one to go with a bang. Will the Wallabies rise to the occasion? The long road to that finale begins against the All Blacks on Saturday.
