WELFORD ROAD — What a time for the Premiership to deliver what you might call a heritage final, of Bath against Leicester Tigers, at Twickenham next Saturday. A decider for the ages is in prospect, just when the plans by a breakaway circus to reinvent club rugby union game are being pored over.
On the evidence of the Premiership’s two spectacular semi-finals over the weekend, the need to change anything is almost (but not quite) non-existent.
As Bath swatted aside Bristol Bears, and Leicester mauled past Sale Sharks, the crowds were noisy, the drama was intense, and the two city-centre stadiums cocooned their spectators in a comforting blanket of familiarity.
Julián Montoya's dancing dad It's pure joy for the Montoya family who flew over from Argentina to watch their man at @LeicesterTigers for the first time. pic.twitter.com/gH0sACvmnX
— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) June 7, 2025Bath and Leicester have 17 league titles between them – a dozen of which date from the competition’s formative years of 1987 to 2002 – so the Premiership final will trade on a blast from the past, even as the mooted “R360” breakaway offers the shock of the new.
As you joined the semi-final crowds trundling over the Pulteney Bridge to Bath’s home at The Rec or down from the car parks round the Leicester Royal Infirmary or the train station to Welford Road, you were taking the same route as generations of supporters down the decades.
The profile of their teams has altered from the early professional days.
Now they get to see a few cherished local players mixed with the likes of Adam Radwan, whose swoop for two tries for Leicester came from a man signed from Newcastle Falcons, and the leadership of Julian Montoya and Handre Pollard: bought in, and transient, as the Argentina hooker and South African fly-half will leave Leicester at the end of the season.
Bath similarly have swapped horny-handed sons of Somerset soil for expensive recruits like half-backs Ben Spencer and Finn Russell. And the two clubs’ head coaches are globetrotting foreigners in Michael Cheika and Johann van Graan.
Leicester Tigers’ Adam Radwan scores their first try against Sale Sharks (Photo: PA)So there has been change on the field, but with the Premiership, it is the format and the central essence that have endured. The main offering, as the marketers like to put it, is clubs that people know and love, particularly since the demise of divisional and county teams did away with any alternative version of non-international rugby.
The big question posed by R360 – whose backers happen to include three men in Mike Tindall, Stuart Hooper and the former player agent Mark Spoors who have strong ties to Bath and Leicester – is whether there are enough people, spending enough cash, with enough interest beyond these old city walls, to deliver bigger money to the players and the game at large.
Northampton Saints wing Tommy Freeman said last week “the money would have to be off the charts” to give up playing for England – if that is what R360 might lead to – but he also said “at some point money probably does talk” in a short career. So the players could have their heads turned.
What more can the Premiership clubs do? They will rebrand the league this summer, but that is likely to be cosmetic. They have tried derby weekends and the occasional big matches at big stadiums to bring these gala occasions around a little more often. A larger league, split into conferences with more play-offs, could do the same. The Premiership could possibly bring in the Welsh, the Scottish and Irish.
They could seek a bigger TV contract, and nudge ticket prices up, although £105 at Bath bought you a compromised view of Joe Cokanasiga’s game-breaking try in the corner on Friday night, and the pillars in Leicester’s Crumbie Stand kept the back muscles working as you leaned to and fro to follow the action on Saturday afternoon.
Bristol say they have got the average age of their crowd from 58 down to 40, but neither do the clubs seek to alienate the crowds they have got. Bath belt out the 80s hit Don’t Stop Believin’ at the final whistle; it’s Smoke on the Water when the teams run out at Welford Road.
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And blimey, once the first whistle blew, it was fun. Bristol attacking from all angles, then pulverised by Bath’s back row; Leicester driving a maul for 20 metres then unleashing the Aussie centre Izaia Perese to the line. Ancient and modern, what’s not to like?
R360 includes in its proposal an annual All-Star Game, a version of which the Premiership dabbled with in its early years as warm-up opposition for England before a World Cup, and could consider reviving if anyone could find a spare week in the season.
On the huge assumption anyone would care about R360’s made-up teams, they would at least be watching them in some of the world’s best and biggest stadiums.
This would, by the by, save some of us from having to make like a combination of gymnast and mountaineer to clamber in and out of Bath and Leicester’s antiquated press seats.
Mind you, Cheika has seen it all and he summed up Welford Road on Saturday evening as “a cauldron of rugby lovers from all around the region”.
There are a few extra ingredients that could be added to English club rugby but this wonderful weekend slammed down the gauntlet to the disruptors to properly prove their case.
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