The Premiership returns this evening with 10 clubs again vying for domestic success and the English top-flight looking as competitive as ever.
Headline names like Owen Farrell and Courtney Lawes were among those to depart in a summer of high-profile outgoings,leaving an uncertain landscape ahead of the start of the season.
Slimmed-down squads and a quieter offseason of incomings will make player management crucial in a campaign culminating in a British & Irish Lions tour to Australia.
Will Northampton Saints go back-to-back? Could Bath or Sale take the next step? And, after a big-name coaching hire, can Leicester rebound to return to the play-offs?
Here’s our club-by-club guide to the new season, in the order in which they finished the last campaign:
Northampton Saints
Director of rugby: Phil Dowson
Champions for the first time in a decade, everything came together magnificently for Saints in 2023-24. A triumphant send-off for Courtney Lawes and Lewis Ludlam was richly deserved, yet it was the blossoming of a young core to take the club forward that will have most pleased the excellent Phil Dowson. Laden with developing talent in key areas, Northampton look well put together once more.
Key figure: George Furbank. Having effectively performed the duties on an interim basis last season, Furbank has been upgraded to club captain after Ludlam’s exit to Toulon. The fullback looked a natural in the role last year, seizing an England shirt again after a couple of years in the international wilderness and linking so wonderfully with the rest of this brilliant backline. Alex Mitchell, Fin Smith, Fraser Dingwall, Tommy Freeman, Ollie Sleightholme and George Hendy should also fancy their chances of featuring in England squads – a mark of Northampton’s strength and depth.
Youngster to watch: Henry Pollock, flanker
Esta historia es de la edición September 20, 2024 de The Independent.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición September 20, 2024 de The Independent.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
It's the unmade Rocky film with a twist... roll up, folks
There is no hate, no love, the gloves are big and the rounds will be short when Mike Tyson and Jake Paul fight on Friday night.
While rivals hit the buffers, Liverpool deserve their lead
Alexis Mac Allister can have a footballing eloquence. His job involves reading the game.
United's ship steadied, now Amorim hits deeper waters
It may be the way all Manchester United managers imagine their reign ending.
Supermarket shoppers will soon find ‘every little hurts'
Is chancellor Rachel Reeves’s decision to hike employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) about to hit us all – and right in the supermarket baskets?
Barclays warns tax rise will hit workers' living standards
Business leaders accuse government of betraying the nation’
How Gary Barlow became accidental king of memes
The singer is currently enjoying a load of nice days out’ on his new travel show. It’s the latest step in his reinvention as an inadvertent icon of hun culture’, says Katie Rosseinsky
Brothers grim: on the dark world of Nineties boybands
As anew documentary series reveals what it was really like to ride the pop train to stardom, Jessie Thompson remembers her own youthful obsession and looks behind the curtain
Cast iron catnip for Gen Z's aspirations of adulthood
Police had to be called after hundreds of frenzied shoppers descended on a cookware sale this weekend. Helen Coffey dons oven gloves to tackle the LeCreuSlay phenomenon
'Some boys wet themselves, some wanted their mothers'
Reckless exposure to atomic weapons tests left young men and later, their children suffering from debilitating illness and disability. Zoé Beaty reports on the long fight for justice
Why India's trainee doctors are hoping for more bodies
Logistical hurdles and cultural sensitivities are affecting the donation of cadavers, so medical students are forced to train on anatomical models or simulations, reports Namita Singh