It may have been an off-season with more star departures than arrivals in the Premiership but it never fails to entertain and it’s a big name off the field that’s going to provide the biggest shake-up.
His preparations consisted of an on-the-fly drawn two-match series in Georgia before flying to South Africa where his English young guys carved a reputation for stickiness.
Leicester Tigers have named Julián Montoya to start and skipper the side when they travel to Kingsholm to take on Gloucester Rugby on Saturday.
South Africa U20 and England U20 will bring their World Rugby U20 Championships to a close this Friday with wholesale changes in their third place play-off encounter at Athlone Stadium.
France produced a remarkable comeback to book a World Rugby U20 Championship Final berth by dispatching England in Cape Town on Sunday.
Hand on heart, the future of international rugby is in a good place just now judging by the array of entertaining personalities that RugbyPass has encountered these past few weeks at the Junior World Championship in South Africa.
The tunnel area at Athlone Stadium on Tuesday afternoon was quite an awkward place for England to be. They had just been pegged to a 22-all draw by the Junior Wallabies in the afternoon's opening match at the ground, denying them the win that there and then would have sealed their semi-final progress as the lone best runner-up.
Size very much became a major talking point last Thursday at the U20s World Cup in South Africa.
There are numerous players at the Junior World Championship who hail from families with serious reputations at the top-end of the sport... Another eye-catching family name within the England ranks is Bracken.