The dawn of a new (rugby) season

English rugby’s Premiership 2021/2022 kicked off last night at Ashton Gate, the home ground of Bristol Bears, last year’s “winners” of the regular (league) season and favourites to win the Final who then suffered a Devon Loch-like failure in their semi-final play-off against the Harlequins.

I’m a great admirer of the Bears’ set-up.

One might be tempted to tease their supporters by adapting comedienne Pauline Aherne’s spoof creation chat show hostess Mrs Merton’s legendary opening question to magician side-kick Debbie McGee and asking “So, chaps, what was it that first attracted you to your new owner billionaire Steve Lansdown?” [Lansdown being co-founder of financial service firm Hargreaves Lansdown and currently listed as worth £1.72 billion] but nobody can doubt his love of rugby union or his commitment to the club and indeed the city of Bristol – he is also majority shareholder in both Bristol City football club and basketball club the Bristol Flyers.

Bristol has always been one of the West Country’s great rugby clubs and they built their recent revival the right way not least in 2017 by hiring Kiwi Pat Lam, former All Black and then later Samoan international and captain at three Rugby World Cups, who has since coached with Scotland, Samoa, Auckland Blues and Connaught, for the long-term – only this week he signed a new five-year contract bind him up to 2028.

All rugby fans will be aware of the extraordinary end to the 2020/2021 Premiership season which exploded spectacularly with the Bears, in scintillating form, going 28-0 up at home up in their play-off semi-final before collapsing as Quins – playing out of their skins – came back in the second half to snatch an unlikely 31-38 victory.

Stunned and devastated as he and his team were at the time, last night – typical of his heritage – Lam was both magnanimous and humble about the reverse in his pre-match interview last night.

When asked about the match he stated that his team had got plenty right in the first half (and then plenty wrong in the second) but as far as he was concerned “That’s footy for you, and you have to learn the lessons and move on”.

For domestic reasons I was unable to watch last night’s game ‘live’ on BT Sport – I shall view my recording of it this morning – but Rusters who have obtained their morning newspapers or have listened to the news will be aware that the Bears went down to the visiting Saracens by a margin of 9-26.

Most will be acutely aware of the Premiership’s all-time biggest scandal when Sarries – home ground (formerly Allianz Park) now called the StoneX Stadium – were docked tens of points and de facto thereby relegated from the Premiership for systematic serious breaches of the decidedly porous Premiership salary cap regulations, through which their business team, certainly in terms of abiding by the spirit of things, had driven the proverbial “coach and horses” for years.

During their term in the Championship – from which they were then (inevitably) promoted at the end of last season to become the thirteenth team in this season’s Premiership and from which by arrangement at the end of which there will be no relegation [don’t ask!] – to a degree Saracens “took their medicine” and vowed to come back stronger than ever.

As part of their “marking time” during their period of penance they retained most of their squad but both “lost a few” permanently and also “loaned out” a number of promising players to other (Premiership) teams for the duration of the 2020/2021 season.

The latter wheeze, of course, suited both he players involved – they could maintain their development by continuing to play Premiership rugby – and also the clubs to which the players had been lent: these had the temporary use of the services of top players who would have waltzed into any other Premiership first XV team anyway, had they been available to them.

Out and about in the Premiership fans’ chat-rooms it may not surprise Rusters too much that the Saracens players have been quoting the “normal service is now to be resumed” line.

They know they might be in for some “ribbing” from opposition fans but they don’t care – for them it’s just a matter of getting back to taking “each game as it comes”.

The outcome of last night’s opening game of the season might be a case in point.

Sarries prevailed by the margin 9-26, scoring a single try along with returning fly half Alex Lozowski’s seven penalties.

Well, “normal service” may well have resumed as far as Saracens – and possibly the bulk of their fellow Premiership clubs who feel they have to go along with the “practicalities” of life in the top tier of English rugby – are concerned.

Meanwhile some of we less “tied-in” fans – and indeed those in the wider rugby world without any adherence to Premiership clubs – could be forgiven for feelling a little more cynical about English rugby’s elite league’s presentation of itself to the public.

I don’t pretend that the vast majority of Premiership teams are studiously “abiding by the rules” and there are just a “few bad apples” who have chosen to play “fast and loose” with them – I’m sure that there are proverbial murky secrets (and examples of sleight of hand) buried deep in the history of all Premiership clubs.

It’s just that for some of us– to the extent that there appear to be some elements within the Saracens club – and among their fans – who are totally unrepentant at what the club got up to – the situation still somehow sticks in one’s craw.