2025/26 Premiership fixtures: Four takeaways including ‘bold new chapter’ and ‘ambitious visit’ to England’s second city

Lawrence Nolan
Premiership

Finn Russell celebrates Bath's 2025 Premiership title success

The fixtures for the 2025/26 Gallagher Premiership season in England were published on Wednesday. Here are the Planet Rugby takeaways:

Bold new chapter

Administrators aware of the need to shake things up in the rugby calendar are an invaluable commodity in a sport looking for increased traction, and Premiership officials have caught the eye with the ambitious gambit of opening the new season with a Thursday night fixture.

It’s been a long time since European rugby abandoned its experiment of playing some Challenge Cup matches on Thursday nights to kickstart their weekends, but Sky Sports have demonstrated that there is an appetite in England for live team sport on Thursdays, as it has become a tradition for them to show a live Super League game in that slot.

If league can do it in the North, then why not union? Sale Sharks share their ground with Super League’s Salford Red Devils, so the readiness of the Salford Community Stadium to stage a Thursday night Premiership match won’t be an issue.

Stadium officials are well-versed about the needs of a Thursday night fixture in Salford, and the hope will be that Sharks fans will find it an attractive time to play.

It will also be interesting to see what fresh innovations TNT Sports, who signed a contract extension last May, will bring to the Premiership party in this new campaign now that the fixtures have been confirmed, and the league will be starting with Sale versus Gloucester on September 25. Thursday night is a bold new chapter.

Welcome, Villa Park

Speaking of bold new chapters, the Premiership is continuing to show it isn’t afraid of taking high-profile matches to new grounds.

We are long used to heading to England Rugby HQ at Twickenham for Harlequins Big Game promotion at Christmas, and Saracens have followed that initiative with their Showdown promotion, which has taken place in recent years at the new Tottenham Stadium.

Bristol joined the party last May with its inaugural Big Day Out at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, and this season it will be the turn of Gloucester to gauge how large its support is beyond the tight confines of Kingsholm.

On the same March 29 Saturday that Saracens and Northampton clash at Tottenham and Bristol are welcoming Harlequins to the Principality, the Cherry and Whites will break new ground by staging the Ed Slater Cup match against Leicester Tigers at Villa Park, the football ground in Birmingham that is home to Aston Villa.

England’s second city is an ambitious new destination for the Premiership, but Villa Park isn’t new to rugby. The Villians’ stadium was on the Rugby World Cup 2015 roster, hosting Australia versus Uruguay and South Africa versus Samoa.

Derby weekend down from two to one

Derby weekend isn’t universally popular, given that some of the rivalries are contrived. Like, Sale and Newcastle, who are 150 miles apart, is hardly a next-door neighbour clash, but needs must in jazzing up the week-to-week promotion of the league.

Round three, which takes place from October 10-12, has been designated derby weekend, beginning with Sale hosting Newcastle on the Friday. Bristol versus Exeter, Northampton versus Leicester and Bath against Gloucester are the Saturday matches, with Harlequins then hosting Saracens on the Sunday.

However, unlike last season, when there were two complete rounds of derby weekend fixtures, there won’t be a second round of all-derby games in 2025/26.

Gloucester will host Bath and Exeter will welcome Bristol in round 10 on January 24, but the other fixtures will be Harlequins versus Leicester, Saracens versus Newcastle and Sale versus Northampton.

The change is a wise move from the perspective that this particular weekend in January, which traditionally marks the resumption of the league following a two-week break to complete the European pool stages.

Steve Borthwick usually whisks his England squad away at that time for a warm-weather training camp leading into the Six Nations, so a full list of club derbies minus all the star players would be an unattractive prospect.

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The Rec’s potential final day blockbuster

There can never be a guarantee regarding the importance of the final round of regular-season matches. In May just gone, it worked out that four teams were still fighting for the final two play-off spots behind the already qualified Bath and Leicester, so there was some last-day drama to be lapped up, which is always desirable.

Now, Premiership officials are hoping there will be even more on the line next June as they have pencilled in Bath versus Leicester – the 2025 finalists – for a round 18 meeting at The Rec.

Also on the last-day menu on June 5 is Sale versus Bristol, Harlequins versus Northampton, Gloucester versus Newcastle and Exeter versus Saracens. Let’s hope it’s an epic Saturday afternoon to get the pulses racing.

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