A thrilling race to the finish will leave most Premiership watchers rooted in the present come Saturday afternoon, but for the nostalgics there is plenty of reason for a look to the past, too. There will come a time when the semi-final win over New Zealand at the 2019 World Cup is no longer used as a reference point – proof of what a confident, complete England side can be – but there is cause this weekend to dig out the World Cup 2019 DVD and press play, to revel in the misty-eyed memories and madness of a night when England overran the world champions.
For much of Eddie Jones’s finest vintage are now bidding adieu. Saturday will mark the regular season farewells to a host of key figures in that side, from Owen Farrell and the Vunipolas at Saracens to Kyle Sinckler, Manu Tuilagi and Courtney Lawes elsewhere, lured south by all that France has to offer.
While Farrell and Lawes are the headline names, it is the other quartet that should cause the greatest pangs of the past for England supporters. The Vunipola brothers, Sinckler and Tuilagi may have slipped into international obsolescence over the last 12 months but they were once England’s four ball-carrying bastions, the solid spine with varied vertebrae that Jones powered up to transform into World Cup finalists.
Steve Borthwick is right to look beyond the group but their unique offerings will prove tough to replace, bruisers with ball-handling skill that allowed the evolution of a multitudinous attack. “Few players change how their position is played,” Saracens boss Mark McCall said this week. “But Mako’s all-around skillset, rugby intelligence, and physicality made us, as coaches, rethink what’s possible from a loosehead prop. And Billy for a while was the No1 eight in the world. I think you just need to watch some of the film of his career to see [that].”
It has been hard to shake the sense of an era ending as the departures have been confirmed, though some have elected to stay. Anticipated news of Henry Slade’s renewal at Exeter at last came through on Thursday, the centre continuing to be the Charles Xavier to the next generation of Exe-men. Danny Care will be back for another hurrah in a Harlequins shirt; Jamie George and Maro Itoje await the details of the enhanced EPS contracts they have signed in principle that will allow them to lead redevelopments for club and country.
Typically, this sort of epochal change might come immediately post-World Cup, but the knock-on impacts of the pandemic left a number of big names with contracts expiring a year later than usual.
Perhaps it has all played into the competitiveness of the campaign. Lawes has been talismanic for Northampton and Farrell has steered Saracens out of rocky waters to sail into the play-offs, but there are still two spots up for grabs and five sides looking to fill them.
Bath start Saturday most strongly placed, partly by dint of a successful trip to Newcastle last weekend but also thanks to their final visitors being a Saints side with little left to play for. Beat a much-changed Northampton and a home semi-final could be theirs if Saracens are beaten by Sale.
Not that Alex Sanderson’s Sharks have found the StoneX a happy hunting ground. It is more than 18 years since Sale last beat Saracens on their home patch – though that 2005 victory at Vicarage Road was a precursor to a league triumph.
“Our ability to respond to lightning bolts that they throw, things we haven’t foreseen that might not go our way [will be key],” Sanderson predicted this week. “If we respond with clarity and calmness and coolness of decision-making, aligned with ruthless physicality, that will give us the best chance of getting through to the semis.”
Exeter will feel themselves nicely placed if Sale are beaten. The Chiefs are in many ways a year ahead in their rebuild and would probably have accepted even a play-off near miss at the start of a transitional campaign, but having found a smattering of stars – Greg Fisilau and Immanuel Feyi-Waboso among them – they will consider it a disappointment if they stumble at this stage. Their final day business is an encounter with Leicester, out of the picture but perhaps needing a win to salvage some goodwill.
If both Sale and Exeter are beaten, though, the back door will be open for one of Harlequins and Bristol to sashay through. Thrill-seekers will surely saunter down to the Stoop regardless for a meeting of the Premiership’s best baton-twirlers. Events at the StoneX and Welford Road may render the result insignificant but entertainment is guaranteed.
“They’ve gone back to the Bristol of old – they are playing a lot of rugby, like us,” Harlequins head coach Danny Wilson said this week. “There’s a high-risk element attached to that. If you get it wrong, you leave yourself quite exposed. It is two teams going head-to-head in quite similar styles. We’ve got to prepare slightly differently but we will still be us, even if there are elements of our game that need to adjust.
“We just have to focus on the job we have in front of us. What will be will be, but we have to get five points from this game and give our supporters a performance that they, and we, can be proud of. The rest will take care of itself. We’ll obviously be keeping an eye on the rest of the games, but not to the extent where it will distract us.”
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