Premiership rugby is now for the masses not the purists – enjoy it while it lasts | Michael Aylwin
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A rerun of last season’s final is a strong start to the year but the domestic game will soon be on hold for the Six Nations. There was a time when the first weekend of the new year meant immersion in what we kindly describe as rugby for the purists. The dark days between Christmas and spring are not easy for anyone, but they are largely responsible for giving rugby a bad name in this part of the world. Ten-man rugby, like asceticism, was pretty much invented for January.
![[Northampton attack against Saracens]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/259acd0922db15884a166b3493e01c556e584bb1/0_236_3733_2240/master/3733.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
And yet it is a concept that these days feels totally alien to the Premiership. An icy blast this weekend may yet precipitate a sudden tightening of coats, but such sobriety would represent quite the about-turn of current trends. Premiership Rugby is about to announce more records for attendances and television audiences over the festive period, with six out of 10 sell-outs. When one of those is at the big stadium in Twickenham, where Harlequins and Leicester indulged in an eight-try thriller last weekend in front of 84,000, amateur rugby in the 20th century feels a long way away.
Only slightly less far away seems the Premiership final at the same place last season. We have a rerun of that match this weekend, when Bath travel to Northampton on Sunday, which is also the return fixture of the opening game of this season. We are at the halfway stage of the league programme, and the champions might very well think of last year’s final as from another time and place.
Unless they have achieved serial-champion status, like Saracens of late, or Wasps or Leicester in years gone by, there are few things worse for a side’s prospects than to be crowned champions the season before. Meanwhile, coming close in a final can sharpen up motivation no end.
