Four rounds into the Premiership and we may have seen the first clear signs of what Saracens are missing without Owen Farrell.
The six-time champions had been unbeaten against London rivals Harlequins for almost five years but with Farrell now playing for Racing 92 in France, that long run bit the dust 17-10 at The Stoop for a first defeat this season.
Saracens had the upset and disruption of their in-form flanker Andy Onyeama-Christie being taken to hospital early in the match with a suspected fracture-dislocation of the ankle, and Juan Martin Gonzalez also went off injured, and the visitors were undone by a return of just one try from their 11 entries into the Harlequins 22.
Sarries’ phase play through the backs and the driving line-out were well-neutered by a magnificent Quins defence.
“As a group, we’ve put defence first in training sessions more often,” Harlequins boss Danny Wilson said afterwards, hailing the influence of new assistant coach Jason Gilmore. He must be a happy Gilmore after that.
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Maybe Farrell’s replacement Fergus Burke is still settling in, but surprisingly often, the Kiwi fly-half was ignored as first receiver from rucks.
Instead the responsibility fell to outside centre Alex Lozowski and Quins appeared to be ready for this attacking shape.
Meanwhile their maul defence justified the selection of a big starting pack, with back-rowers Chandler Cunningham-South and Will Evans left on the bench.
Reigning champions Northampton Saints had similar problems to Saracens in their 24-8 derby defeat at Leicester Tigers, making a whopping 16 entries into the home 22 with, again, a meagre return of just one try.
So, for this week at least, the state of the attack of the Premiership’s two most recent title-winning clubs is up for criticism.
Gloucester’s former captain Ed Slater pinpointed the way his old team chose to attack as a problem, picking out hooker Jack Singleton and No 8 Zach Mercer for making questionable plays.
In a post on X, Slater wrote: “Singleton kick, Mercer offload and playing stupidly off the kick-off when we got back to within ten [points]. That is three tries off the top of my head, it is a pay-off from entertaining rugby. Turnovers when you are throwing it about will leave you very vulnerable.”
Gloucester’s George Barton drop-kicked a brilliant conversion after the ball fell off the tee, to huge acclaim, but Bath came on strong in the second half to win 55-31.
Steward’s inquiry
Freddie Steward scored from a neatly disguised tap-and-go move in Leicester’s victory over Northampton, as part of an excellent afternoon for the full-back opposite his England positional rival George Furbank, although Steward insisted any such motivation was far from his mind.
The 23-year-old Steward has never appeared to make a public fuss since losing his England’s starting place to Furbank (Steward started the most recent Test in New Zealand, but only when Furbank was injured).
So he has set a great example of the way to take disappointment on the chin, and continues to offer a contrast to the skills of Furbank and Marcus Smith as the Autumn Nations Series approaches.
Low blow sparks debate
A grim incident at Welford Road saw Northampton No 8 Sam Graham taken off with a knee injury, sparking commentary that the law interpretations that require players to tackle lower are having a harmful knock-on effect.
A goalline drop-out left Graham carrying on the halfway line to meet a line of Leicester tacklers, with Tommy Reffell the one to get to him.
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Reffell stooped low to make the collision, and adopted a kind of genuflecting position, one leg in front of the other, as he collided with Graham’s knee, with the Saint’s leg jammed in the turf.
Reffell was sent to the sin bin for an illegal tackle, but TV analysts David Flatman and Austin Healey immediately questioned if there was any real fault on the Welshman’s part, contending that his concern was not to go into contact too high.
Reffell and his captain Julian Montoya seemed not to accept the tackle was illegal, per se, as both pointed out to the referee Anthony Woodthorpe there had been an attempt to wrap the arms.
But the TMO said: “He’s already off his feet when he makes the tackle”. Or “already on his knees”, according to Woodthorpe.
And the officials are always the ones in the delicate position of justifying the difference between bad luck and an law-infringing incident with an unhappy outcome.
Rugby meets Hollywood
TNT Sports are running an advert for their first-time coverage of the Autumn Nations Series with Hollywood stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, JK Simmons and Chris Evans riffing on Americans’ lack of knowledge of rugby, and ending up tipping Wales for the sole reason it ties in their movie’s name, Red One.
All good fun, and a decent get for TNT, but you hope enough spectators Stateside will be au fait with the sport when the 2031 and 2033 Rugby World Cups are staged there.
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Cov rule out promotion
Coventry beat Chinnor on Saturday to stay on top of the Championship but in the run-up chairman Jon Sharp all but ruled out an application for promotion to the Premiership until next season at the earliest.
We broke the news that only Doncaster Knights out of the 12 clubs in the Championship were certain to undertake the promotion audit this season, and now Doncaster’s hopes of finishing top – which is a prerequisite for being in the end-of-season play-off with the Premiership’s bottom club – have been given a big blow by their shock 12-0 loss at home to London Scottish.
There is an irony here, as Scottish’s squad are routinely described as part-time, but they were fortified on Saturday by 10 players on loan from Harlequins – which shows how the Championship can be used to develop talent, although the number of loanees is likely to be capped at six in the future.
Ibitoye toys with Exeter
Gabriel Ibitoye touches down for Bristol Bears (Photo: Getty)
Gabriel Ibitoye bagged a hat-trick of tries for new Premiership leaders Bristol Bears in their spectacular comeback win at Sandy Park, as hosts Exeter Chiefs lost a fifth league game in a row for the first time since 2014.
But Ibitoye may not mind being upstaged by another hat-trick across the Channel in the Top 14, seeing as it came from Antoine Dupont, who was making his season’s debut after the summer Olympics and a rest including a trip to visit the Los Angeles Chargers.
Dupont came off the bench for Toulouse against Clermont Auvergne and scored three times in 13 minutes: off a driving maul, an inside line, and a chase of an Ange Capuozzo kick in a Toulouse counter-attack.
Manu Tuilagi put in an acclaimed tackle on Gregory Alldritt as the England centre made his competitive debut in Bayonne’s 37-7 win over La Rochelle in front of 31,000 fans in San Sebastian in northern Spain.
And how about Farrell? His Racing side fought a stultifying 0-0 stalemate in the first half against Toulon before winning 22-6, with scrum-half Nolann le Garrec doing all Racing’s goal-kicking.
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