By Ollie Phillips
At last there’s some good news in English rugby with record attendances and millions watching from home across two Premiership rounds over the holidays.
Of course it must be taken with a pinch of salt, the figures always tend to be skewed slightly at Christmas, but it is at least a sign of retained interest in the sport.
And to top it all off we have turned into 2024 without a top flight team going bust this season. Hurrah.
Premiership top six
And when you look at the top of the table you can see why there’s interest; just three points separate Northampton Saints in first (34) and Harlequins in sixth (31). It is a suburb advert for the competitiveness seen in this league as teams fight for the top four spots.
The closeness of the top contenders, though, does raise questions as to whether we need the playoffs anymore and whether this competitiveness can continue to translate into the Investec Champions Cup and Challenge Cup – where English sides have surprised thus far.
But let’s revel in the positivity of the battle for the top four while we can, because elsewhere in the table it is a different story.
Stragglers
Six points off Harlequins in seventh is Leicester Tigers with Bristol Bears four further back in eighth.
But it is ninth and tenth, Gloucester Rugby and Newcastle Falcons, where my real disappointment sits.
Gloucester are a huge club, one of the biggest to never have won the Premiership, but they’re on a run of eight consecutive Premiership losses and it looks like it is all falling apart.
They’ve backed the coaching set up with George Skivington at the helm but domestic results will be key in keeping and attracting top players going forward.
Newcastle Falcons, unlike Gloucester, have won the Premiership but they’re in a right hole at the moment.
They’re admirably cutting their cloth, while clubs such as Bristol Bears record a pre-tax loss of £5m, but they’re not competitive enough to have a win on the board just yet.
It’s not as if they’re being beaten 100-0 every week, far from it, but the lack of a win will ensure they struggle to attract the best and brightest.
There is a play-off this year, assuming a Championship side meets the promotion criteria and wins the second tier, and Newcastle will be favourites to partake in that one-off match if it occurs. But Gloucester aren’t out of the woods yet either, and the two sides clash on the final day of the season.
The last fortnight has been key for the Premiership; they have shown that they can fill stadiums, have close battles and entertain the masses. Now the hard bit comes: retaining the eyeballs.
Former England Sevens captain Ollie Phillips recently swam the English Channel to raise money for Head for Change, a charity aspiring to achieve positive change for brain health in sport. Follow Ollie on Twitter to donate.
