PWR Mid-season review

Ok, it was a Champions Cup weekend but there was also a cracking weekend of women's rugby and on most sites it didn't even rate a mention. So I thought we should have a thread on where the league is around the mid-season point - though most teams in the 9 team league are into the second half of the season.

Exeter are clearly the team to beat... but beating them is proving problematic. They're unbeaten so far, and have won all but one of those matches by 10 points or more. Top of the table with a game in hand, they are already favourites to top the table and it will take some team to beat them.

Harlequins are the team that have taken Exeter closest. They began with two early losses - a one point loss to Exeter with the final kick of the game, after having two tries disallowed, and a 9 point loss to Gloucester-Hartpury during the WXV period, where Emma Sing ran riot as an international among club players. Since then, they've gone on a 7 match winning streak, including notable away scalps at Saracens and Loughborough. The latter may have cost them dearly, though, with breakthrough player Nicole Wythe coming off with a probable dislocated shoulder.

Gloucester-Hartpury the reigning champions made a good start to the season but were derailed somewhat by post-WXV encounters with Exeter and Sarries, and a narrow loss to Bristol Bears. Still highly competitive, I'd expect them to be in the mix for the playoffs at the end of the season but may not have quite enough to make the final.

Saracens are also in the mix but looking more vulnerable than in past years. Their one point loss to Quins at home, albeit in awful conditions and with a little help from the corner flag, will have stung. They are joint top scorers at the moment, but only 4th defensively, and that may be their achilles heel.

Bristol Bears have a game in hand, and could well jump up to level points with Quins if they can beat the "bye week blues" - every team bar Quins has lost following a week off so far. The arrival of Ilona Maher has massively increased their profile; we've yet to see her impact on the pitch, but their squad isn't short of talent anyway. Joint top scorers, and currently second in the defensive stats, the concern has to be that they've racked up big scores against weaker teams but struggled against their top of the table peers.

Trailfinders mark the stark dividing line in the table. The bottom four all have fewer wins than losses, but Ealing are very much the best of the rest - 6 bonus points and a points difference of -16 is a little deceptive as big wins against Loughborough, Sale and Tigers mask an average losing margin of nearly 14 points against the teams above them. They can score - 5th in the table - but their defence is leaky.

Loughborough The Lightning have struggled this season, only beating Sale and Leicester. They've struggled with having Emily Scarratt returning from long term injury and being a bit off her best, and with Sadia Kabeya having been out until the last two games, but they do not look like the team they were a couple of years ago.

There's not much to say about Leicester and Sale. Leicester beat Sale; their defence is marginally less leaky and they've scored a few more points, but neither team is likely to challenge any of the sides above them.

The table suggests that the league splits into 4 groups: Sale and Leicester at the bottom, then Loughborough and Ealing, and a group of 4 chasing Exeter, who are way out in front once their games in hand are taken into account. I would put Quins slightly ahead of the rest of the chasing pack - they were unlucky to have their first two fixtures during WXV against the other two top 3 sides, and desperately unlucky to lose to Exeter in the way they did. I'd expected a tough season for them with the level of change they had over the summer, but Ross Chisholm has made an excellent start as their Head Coach and built a very strong squad with some smart recruiting - Welsh international Alex Callendar, Spain's Claudia Pena and Italy's Silvia Turani in particular have had a huge impact.