• Tense relegation battle has led some to call for ring-fencing• RFU’s interim chief executive dismisses ‘wishful thinking’The Rugby Football Union has shut the door on Premiership promotion and relegation being scrapped this season. The RFU’s interim …
• Bath 7-7 Sale• Cokanasiga try in closing stages denies basement club victoryEngland wing Joe Cokanasiga struck late to secure an unlikely 7-7 draw for Bath just when it seemed Gallagher Premiership bottom club Sale would leave a rain-sodden Rec with …
• Saracens 29-6 Wasps• Wasps overpowered after the breakOne of the Premiership’s runaway leaders falters, the other strides out with a certain inevitability. Saracens go top, the only team left unbeaten, nine from nine. Their unbeaten run in all compet…
• Bristol 41-10 Leicester• Tigers are humbled at Ashton GateLeicester were champions five years ago but a slow, gradual descent is gathering speed. They dropped into the bottom half of the table after a feeble, disjointed display against promoted Brist…
• Harlequins 28-26 Exeter• Loss is away side’s first of the seasonHarlequins condemned league leaders Exeter to a first defeat of the Premiership season but had to withstand a late charge before coming through 28-26 at The Stoop.Despite scoring first t…
Saracens and Exeter are on their own at the top of the Premiership but at the bottom things are hotting upPremiership clubs are swelled this weekend by the return of their international players, most of whom are thrust straight back into action in a se…
• Reports in France say English clubs want New Zealand captain• Paris club were confident of securing Read after World CupRacing 92’s bid to sign the New Zealand captain Kieran Read after next year’s World Cup on a £1m-a-year contract could be gazumped…
• CVC would run commercial activities but not league itself• Takeover bid was turned down by clubs in SeptemberPremiership club owners are likely to vote for a proposal to give a minority stake to private equity firm CVC in return for more than £200m, …
• All Blacks preparing to face Japan in Tokyo on Saturday• England are still counting cost of Lions tour, says HansenSteve Hansen has called for a mandatory 16-week off-season, days after an 11-month campaign was announced in England. The New Zealand h…
• Chief executive denies trying to ‘squeeze’ tourists• ‘The Lions will always be part of the rugby schedule’Premiership Rugby will not bring its play-off final in 2021 forward to allow the British & Irish Lions to train for a week before flying out…
• In-season breaks and post-season breaks introduced• England players restricted to maximum 30 gamesThe Premiership season will end in late June for the three seasons beginning 2019-20 under a new structure announed by the Rugby Football Union on Tuesd…
• Premiership will include mid-season breaks• Apologies to Cardiff Blues and Glasgow for colour clashThe much-debated changes to England’s traditional domestic rugby calendar will be announced on Tuesday at Twickenham. Rather than lasting from early Se…
Joe Cokanasiga will bring bulk to England’s backline and Billy Vunipola does the game a good turnAlready it seems likely Joe Cokanasiga will win his first England cap this autumn and the smart money would be on him doing so against Japan in the third m…
• Leicester wing may miss two Champions Cup matches • Marland Yarde faces six months out with dislocated kneecapJonny May is set to be fit for England’s four-Test autumn campaign, which begins against South Africa next month, but the shoulder injury he…
• Worcester 52-7 Bristol• ‘It’s a tough day,’ says Bristol’s Pat LamIt is still early days but the new consortium in charge of Worcester could not have wished for a more auspicious start. Play like this consistently and the Warriors, far from being rel…
• Harlequins 20-25 Saracens• Former NFL player Paul Lasike taken off with head injuryIf gallant failures are as popular in the US as they are over here, then this agonising defeat for Harlequins will be a smash hit as the first Premiership match to be …
• Leicester 23-15 Northampton• Tries from Ben Youngs and Jordan Olowofela score for TigersRugby’s high casualty rate was again exposed during a match that was played here to raise money for Northampton‘s former Australia centre Rob Horne, whose career …
• Wasps 21-35 Gloucester• Cipriani scores 15 points as Gloucester earn bonus-point winIt could not have been any other way. Danny Cipriani returned to the club that let him go, now king of the one who took him in, and masterminded that rarest of phenom…
Injury forced the Worcester prop out of the last England training squad but he is determined to stay in Eddie Jones’s plansIt was a footnote to Manu Tuilagi’s latest injury but Nick Schonert’s withdrawal from England’s training squad last month was a b…
• Bath 24-39 Exeter• Exeter run in five tries after close-fought first halfBy the end, Todd Blackadder’s cunning plan had turned to chaos but to fault Bath for this defeat does not do nearly enough credit to Exeter. It is a sixth win from their opening…
