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Five talking points ahead of the new Gallagher Premiership season

By PA
Courtney Lawes exited the Premiership last June as a title winner (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

The 2024/25 Gallagher Premiership season promises to be another blockbuster campaign full of twists and turns. Last season’s finalists Bath and Northampton meet on opening night in the west country, while much is anticipated from new Premiership faces like Gloucester’s Wales half-backs Gareth Anscombe and Tomos Williams, Fiji captain Waisea Nayacalevu at Sale and Saracens fly-half Fergus Burke.

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Here, the PA news agency looks at some of the talking points ahead of the new campaign:

All-conquering Saints?
Northampton will be aiming to achieve what only three clubs have managed in Premiership rugby’s 27-year existence – successfully defend the title. Saints were worthy champions last term, playing a thrilling brand of rugby that saw them finish top after the regular 18-game campaign before beating semi-final opponents Saracens and then Bath at Twickenham.

Saracens, Leicester and Wasps all won league silverware at least two seasons in a row, and although it is a demanding task, Saints look well placed to mount another major challenge under the impressive direction of a coaching team led by Phil Dowson and Sam Vesty.

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Bears roaming in Wales
Premiership history will be made when a league game takes place in Wales. Bristol Bears have moved their west country derby against Bath in May from Ashton Gate to Cardiff’s 74,500-capacity Principality Stadium. It would be no surprise to see a full house for the fixture, which could prove a key game in the title play-off race.

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Two Premiership encounters have taken place in the United States – London Irish met Saracens in New York in 2016, while Saracens tackled Newcastle in Philadelphia 18 months later – and the home of Welsh rugby will become a new staging post for a competition that has previously stopped off at English venues such as Twickenham, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and St James’ Park.

Big names a tough act to follow
The Premiership will unfold this season without many familiar faces, players who have excelled across numerous campaigns.

Saracens minus France-based trio Owen Farrell, Billy and Mako Vunipola could take some getting used to, while Manu Tuilagi has left Sale Sharks for Bayonne, Courtney Lawes is now at Brive after close to 300 games for Northampton, Kyle Sinckler has departed Bristol and powerful South Africans Andre Esterhuizen and Jasper Wiese will no longer pummel opposition defences in the colours of Harlequins and Leicester, respectively.

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The competition will undoubtedly continue to thrive and move on at pace, but the landscape has changed.

Cheika’s Leicester challenge
Leicester’s appointment of Australian Michael Cheika as their new head coach could prove a master-stroke. The Tigers, nine-time Premiership champions, finished eighth last season to continue a rollercoaster ride over the past five years.

During that time, Leicester won a league title, but were also outside the top five on three occasions. Former world coach of the year Cheika took Australia to the 2015 World Cup final and won a European crown with Leinster, and his no-nonsense approach appears just what Tigers need in their quest to roar consistently once more.

Can Diamond make Newcastle sparkle?
The statistics make for grim reading. The last four domestic campaigns have seen Newcastle lose 62 of their 84 Premiership games, including all 18 last term. They propped up the final league table in 2023 and 2024, and most bookmakers confidently expect them to complete an unwanted hat-trick.

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In consultant rugby director Steve Diamond, though, they have a vastly-experienced figure who knows the Premiership better than most. The challenge is huge, but Diamond is not one to run in the opposite direction. The Falcons’ aim is to ruffle a few feathers, and if they can effect a fortress mentality at Kingston Park, those elusive victories might start to arrive.

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G
GrahamVF 15 minutes ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

"has SA actually EVER helped to develop another union to maturity like NZ has with Japan," yes - Argentina. You obviously don't know the history of Argentinian rugby. SA were touring there on long development tours in the 1950's

We continued the Junior Bok tours to the Argentine through to the early 70's

My coach at Grey High was Giepie Wentzel who toured Argentine as a fly half. He told me about how every Argentinian rugby club has pictures of Van Heerden and Danie Craven on prominent display. Yes we have developed a nation far more than NZ has done for Japan. And BTW Sa players were playing and coaching in Japan long before the Kiwis arrived. Fourie du Preez and many others were playing there 15 years ago.


"Isaac Van Heerden's reputation as an innovative coach had spread to Argentina, and he was invited to Buenos Aires to help the Pumas prepare for their first visit to South Africa in 1965.[1][2] Despite Argentina faring badly in this tour,[2] it was the start of a long and happy relationship between Van Heerden and the Pumas. Izak van Heerden took leave from his teaching post in Durban, relocated to Argentina, learnt fluent Spanish, and would revolutionise Argentine play in the late 1960s, laying the way open for great players such as Hugo Porta.[1][2] Van Heerden virtually invented the "tight loose" form of play, an area in which the Argentines would come to excel, and which would become a hallmark of their playing style. The Pumas repaid the initial debt, by beating the Junior Springboks at Ellis Park, and emerged as one of the better modern rugby nations, thanks largely to the talents of this Durban schoolmaster.[1]"


After the promise made by Junior Springbok manager JF Louw at the end of a 12-game tour to Argentina in 1959 – ‘I will do everything to ensure we invite you to tour our country’ – there were concerns about the strength of Argentinian rugby. South African Rugby Board president Danie Craven sent coach Izak van Heerden to help the Pumas prepare and they repaid the favour by beating the Junior Springboks at Ellis Park.

147 Go to comments
J
JW 6 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

147 Go to comments
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