Loose Pass: The big questions for 2018/19

Editor

This week we will be mostly concerning ourselves with Saracens and Leinster, and all those looking to challenge their dominance.

With Europe’s domestic season all but over (bar the self-flagellating French), Loose Pass has chosen to get well ahead of itself. Here are a few questions only the new season will be able to answer.

Who – or what – will break Saracens’ hegemony of the Aviva Premiership?

The Fez Men have lifted the spoils in three of the past four seasons (and topped the league in the two seasons previous to that), and the manner of their demolition of Exeter Chiefs at Twickenham on Saturday served to suggest that their peak still lies way off in the distance. It’s the wielding together of bustling youth and wily experience that impresses most. Well, it’s not so much impressive as flabbergasting. Consider this: Richard Wigglesworth had already pocketed a Premiership winner’s medal before Maro Itoje had even handled a rugby ball! Rivals will take heart from the champions’ mid-season dip in form, and, yes, the Test windows do leave them a little exposed. But a couple of shrewd off-season signings should sort that out. The southern hemisphere’s loss will, once again, be Europe’s gain.

Who – or what – will stop this Leinster side?

After a couple of fallow seasons, the Dubliners are back to their bouncing best. Like Sarries, Leinster’s success owes much to their perfect balance of young bodies and old heads … not that their outrageously talented youngsters need much hand-holding, of course. That said, James Ryan might need a few words of worldly wisdom when (if?) he finally tastes professional defeat. He’s now, somewhat ridiculously, 21 wins from 21 games.

Can Danny Cipriani crack the enigma that is Gloucester Rugby?

On the face of it, this could be the signing of the season. As fancy as they are frustrating, the Cherry and Whites have long looked one pass short of the finish article. Expect the resurgent Cipriani to deliver it.

Will Ulster be able to put their immediate past behind them?

The Irish province spent much of the season floundering in a sordid quagmire not entirely of their own creation. Having purged themselves of the bad blood, they deserve their shot at redemption, and we wish them the very best. The signing of Jared Payne on defensive coaching duties shows that minds have finally returned to rugby. And if this is to be the quality of their thinking, we can expect Ulster to make a rapid return to the higher echelons of European rugby.

Can the Tigers relocate their bite?

For the first time in 14 years, Leicester’s fabled pack failed to bully its way into the Premiership play-offs. The ABC Club used to devour all-comers. Now all-comers arrive at Welford Road with a vastly different take on the whole ‘ABC’ thing – to win there has become ‘as easy as…’. With Exeter having displaced Leicester as England’s centre of home-spun excellence, Matt O’Connor’s immediate off-season priority is to source some foreign steel. The locals won’t like it, of course, but they need to realise that they are out of options.

Have the Saints hit rock bottom?

Surely, having finished ninth in the table, the only way is up for Northampton. Right? Well, only time will tell. The departure of a host of big names has rocked the Franklin’s Garden faithful, but it’s probably just the tonic. The signing of James Haskell might also prove to be a masterstroke. He has his detractors, but the England stalwart is nothing if not passionate. And then there’s that personality: he could prove to be the family therapist that the dysfunctional Saints so desperate need – albeit in the manner of Patch Adams over Sigmund Freud.

How can Newcastle possibly top this season?

The Falcons’ steady ascent to the higher reaches of the Premiership table is surely the story of the English season. We never thought that Polynesians would prosper in England’s north east, but Dean Richards proved us wrong – and not for the first time. Now comes the difficult follow-up season. It will be fascinating to see how the side copes with its newly acquired weight of expectation.

Must we persist with this convoluted PRO14 format?

They say Super Rugby’s Sunwolves clock up over 50,000 airmiles per season – and suffered all the associated side-effects. Maths isn’t our forte, but isn’t that just four round trips between South Africa and Europe? And how often did the Cheetahs and the Southern Kings rock up in Wales and Scotland and Ireland and Italy this season, each time being thrown out of kilter by the climatic season? Their inclusion still makes no sense to us – and we dare say it makes little sense to them either. Surely there’s a better way to attract fans and grow the game. Surely there’s better ways to spend our game’s hard-won money than by sending Zebre to southern Africa to play in front of two men and a braai.

Got any of the answers? Of course you do! Please share your pearlers below.

Loose Pass compiled by former Planet Rugby editor Andy Jackson