James Simpson Daniel - "Weak Premiership this year"

Speaking on Brian Moore's podcast, Sinbad said that, aside from Saracens, Wasps, and a bit of Exeter, Premiership teams aren't showing much form this year. One of the main reasons he gives is the current league position of Leicester. He thinks - and says Tigers fans agree - that this is one of the poorest Leicester sides in a long time, and yet they are still in 5th position because seven other teams have been worse.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2017/02/19/brian-moores-full-contact-gavin-mairs-james-simpson-daniel/

I'm enjoying the matches so far but one reason is probably because results are in doubt, with so many inconsistent performances. Sinbad agrees that the league is competitive but doesn't think the standard of play is anything to write home about.

Not sure I back his logic TBH.

Sinbad's jumping on the Ben Ryan bandwagon that all Rugby Union skills are 30yrs behind other sports.

Skill levels have not kept up with improvements in conditioning, increased speed of the game, increased size of players etc.

Watching the Sale/Wasps game yesterday what was a highly enjoyable game was also one containing frequent passes (pretty much from all the backs on both sides) that caused runners to have to stretch or stop their run. Fairly bais offloads were being lauded to the skies by the commentators.

When you watch training sessions, teams execute their skills with aplomb - but there is not the same pressures (both mental and physical ) on them. To make the skills second nature they have to be drilled into players - but at the same levels of intensity (or really more) that they will find in a game. With the sheer physicality of the game this would lead to a marked increase in training injuries.

Is the premiership "weak"? I am not so sure.

Says a lot for EJ's high tempo sessions with England.....

Basic skills of the Saints players (handling, tackling etc), and conditioning, are abysmal and we are sitting in 8th place. When you look at some of the maulings Prem teams have had vs Leinster, Munster etc it does appear that outside of the top 2 we are well off the pace.

I agree that there have been some huge defeats (after all I have been at some of them).

There have also been some good wins from teams below the top 2 as well.

Pro12 teams are more affected by International calls that AP (in the main) and certainly seemed to start last season after the RWC well off the pace. This perhaps helped suggest that the Franglo teams were in a much better place, rather than a "once in 4 years" event.

Im not even sure its that comeptitive this year, certainly no more so than it ever is.
Yes there a few big name clubs having relatively bad seasons but the gap between the top and bottom is huge, and its not like Northampton are in danger of getting relegated (again).
The top 3 are the same 3 clubs as at the end of last season ... and the bottom feeders were pretty predictable too. Its not exactly a season full of surprises, even the decline of Tigers is just the continuation of a long term trend....it it looks like they may be getting their act together at last.

2014/2015 was a competitve season (london welsh aside) with a ridiculous race for the playoff spots and just one club a long way adrift.

Its fair to say though that Europes been a dissapointment again after a strong showing last year.

He's right, it's BT sport hyped garbage.

Some of those sides would get relegated from the pro12,

rodders wrote:He's right, it's BT sport hyped garbage.

Some of those sides would get relegated from the pro12,

Ture, peopel have a go at the Italains for being rubbish but none of them have ever been relegated.

Gooseberry wrote:

rodders wrote:He's right, it's BT sport hyped garbage.

Some of those sides would get relegated from the pro12,

Ture, peopel have a go at the Italains for being rubbish but none of them have ever been relegated.

We should stick them in the premiership they might win something ....

I wouldn't say the premiership is weak. Newcastle are performing well above they normally do.

Wasps lost to Sale and Saracens have lost to Worcester and Gloucester in consecutive games which makes things a bit more unpredictable.

Bath have done much better this season.

It's weird because the Prem did very well last year in Europe.

I'm not sure we can see it as a trend, at least mostly, just individually most Prem teams are struggling for heterogenous reasons

The growing trend for loads and loads of injuries in rugby in general IS a trend and the one thing I think that probably does link into this relatively poor form across the board, it also seems worse in the Premiership than other leagues but that may be bias simply because I am more aware of what is going on in the Premiership