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Henry Slade returns, Leicester injury headache and Saracens miss Owen Farrell
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Henry Slade returns, Leicester injury headache and Saracens miss Owen Farrell

Henry Slade played the first match of the season Exeter A line kick and resistance to heavy contact and a conversion as Ross assisted Vintcent try – all in the first quarter.

However, while the 65-man center proves his suitability for the league EnglandHe couldn’t stop when he set out to rejoin the team on Sunday evening Chiefs suffered their sixth defeat in six league matchesat home clownsand Exeter only Newcastle Falcons below them in the table.

Premier League now enters the international break with a real pause for breath. Like Leicester Tigers‘Australia coach Michael Cheika After Saturday’s chaotic 32-29 win Saracens: “Usually, I am the coach whose team works the ball the most.

“But here everyone throws the ball like crazy; sometimes I feel like I’m left out because we’ve gone…not traditional, but we do things differently compared to others.”

With this wider range of styles in the Premiership comes unpredictability. Among the top four teams in the first six rounds of the Premiership, Bath Won at Leicester, Leicester won at Saracens, Saracens won Bristoland Bristol won at Bath.

There was a challenger for the trial of the season at Bristol at the weekend and Joe Batley beat him to the finish. NorthamptonIt took Newcastle one game to recover as Sale Sharks lost 40-13 at Bath; Gloucester.

Leicester’s injury headache

There was a time when a club coach like Cheika would probably have spit out his effigy upon receiving news that a senior player training in England had been injured, but the deal between club and country was backed by the Rugby Football Union’s £264 million professional playing partnership (PGP). Cheika looked set to continue with the Premiership when he reacted to reports that Leicester striker Ollie Chessum would be sidelined for several weeks with a knee injury in England.

“It’s disappointing but the guys have to train, get ready for the (international) season,” said Cheika, who will now step back to allow Matt Smith and Neil Fowkes to coach Leicester in the upcoming Premier League Cup. 10 of the Championship clubs.

new contracts

Chessum was named among 17 leading England players to sign much-talked-about “enhanced” elite pay team (EPS) contracts on Friday. These differ from cricket’s central contracts as Jamie George, Ellis Genge, Maro Itoje, Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, Marcus Smith and 12 others still have contracts with clubs that are their main employers.

But there is a fear among the club’s fans that it is England’s Achilles heel that determines when and where players play. Others think it guarantees players an international fee of £160,000 a year to ensure security, and in some cases is a power play for players to fend off offers from clubs in France or Japan.

Because it is considered commercially sensitive, the duration of each contract is confidential for one, two or three years. These were negotiated by Team England Rugby (TER), a recently formed organization separate from the Rugby Players’ Union. Led by George, Genge, Itoje, Joe Marler and Anthony Watson, the new group says their aim is to “make a collective but direct impact on the issues that affect them most, such as playing, rest and recovery time, pay and commercial considerations and how these are done.” Their profile can best be developed to help grow the game more widely.”

They are aware that some may view this suspiciously as getting paid more for playing less. Here too, many observers have long complained that players were criticized for too many matches. One notable element in the fine print of the TER deal is the “exemption period” that allows a player to tour with the Lions next summer even if he has played at or near the PGP maximum of 30 games in the season.

Saracens miss Farrell

Owen Farrell is one of those heading to France this season and at the weekend the former Saracens scrum-half scored his first try for Racing, with his former club going through the contact book the old-fashioned way to fill his place in the defeat. Leicester

The well-traveled Tim Swiel is heading to Miami in the American MLR but after helping Saracens in a friendly against Leinster last season, he dropped by again last week as the Sarries miss four No.10s: Alex Lozowski on England duty and the latest transfers injured Fergus Burke (hamstring) and Louie Johnson (biceps), followed by Alex Goode (quad) leaving the game just before kick-off.

Swiel, who played for Harlequins, Newcastle, Edinburgh and clubs in South Africa and Japan, did not know all the moves but still contributed a try and nine strike points.

As for Leicester, who currently sit second in the Premier League, Izaia Perese was named man of the match, coming full circle with Cheika in charge of Australia when he brought the then 18-year-old center to England and Ireland. Tour in 2016.

No rest for the Scots

Scotland kick off their autumn series against Fiji immediately following England’s clash with New Zealand at Murrayfield next Saturday, but the Scots were at the URC while the entire England squad bar Slade stood up at the weekend.

Edinburgh lost 22-13 away to the Ospreys, while Glasgow won 28-17 against the Stormers; former and current national captains Rory Darge and Sione Tuipulotu and highly valued prop Zander Fagerson were among those included.

Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend lamented just two training sessions before facing Fiji. At the same time, players need to become battle hardened.

Twickenham’s new name

It is time to take action on renaming Twickenham to Allianz Stadium. A deal worth more than £100 million over the next 10 years means the insurer’s name will be plastered everywhere from the sides of the stands to the turnstiles and paper cups in front of 82,000 fans at next week’s England v New Zealand match.

Sports fans tend to divide these deals into two main categories: stadiums that have established identity from day one, such as The Emirates in Arsenal and The Aviva in Dublin; and those who have changed and hope for the best: BT Murrayfield, now under the name Scottish Gas, or the Kia Oval or the almost indescribable “cinch stadium in Franklin’s Gardens”.

Some say the sponsor should be name-checked as a thank you for funding rugby. Others say it’s selling the soul. The rugby media is not yet united. While one major news organization is content with “Twickenham”, the other is trying “Allianz Stadium, Twickenham”; with the idea that otherwise no one would know what he meant. The third used “formerly stadium” in a playful way.

I Broadcast rights holders understand that BBC Radio is not contractually obliged to use the new name and are instead likely to compromise on various references throughout their broadcast time.

Some England players raise eyebrows when they correct themselves by deliberately saying “Allianz Stadium” instead of “Twickenham”. Would you believe that the hotel adjacent to the ground has a nine-word name?

This writer prefers to use Twickenham for now for the sake of clarity and to see how the new name goes. Since the ground opened in 1907, the T-word has meant more than a match ground; For the rugby public at home and abroad, it represents English rugby, the RFU and a place players can aspire to reach.

Maybe people will soon be comfortable saying “See you at Allianz” or “AllStad” (but please no Ally Pally; that’s taken). By the way, don’t worry about sponsors; They’ve done their analysis and know what they’re up against.

Where is the best ground in rugby?

Danie Craven Stadium in Stellenbosch, South Africa (Photo: Getty)
Danie Craven Stadium in Stellenbosch, South Africa (Photo: Getty)

On the subject of stadiums, CEO Lance Bradley was involved in the Ospreys’ move to return to St Helen’s next season. I wonder in these pages Whether it’s the most beautiful ground in top-flight rugby in recent times.

A few other candidates also looked good over the weekend: the Rec at Bath in the autumn sunshine and the Stormers v Glasgow clash at the Danie Craven Stadium in Stellenbosch in the South African spring sunshine: a backdrop of honey-coloured Georgian architecture and the Twin Peaks mountains, respectively.

Tastes vary and perhaps some might prefer the city center feel of Cardiff, Leicester or Gloucester? We welcome all nominations.