FOR YEARS A lot of Irish rugby fans dismissed the English Premiership as nothing more than manufactured hype but even the most one-eyed Pro12 pirate has to admit that this season’s serving of the Aviva has been a joy to watch.
Today summed up what as been evident for most of the season, which is that the league features three or four of Europe’s most potent attacks. Only three teams failed to scored over 20 points while five sides scored 40 or more.
The London Welsh score aside, a lot of the games were very exciting with a crazy amount of scores.
London Irish v Wasps was a particularly cracking game (although it was unbearably excruciating if you backed Wasps… *sniff) with the lead swinging back and forth throughout before they swapped tries in the final five minutes to settle for an 80-point draw.
The playoff race was just as exciting as the Pro12 sides fighting for home advantage, with Saracens, Leicester and Exeter looking to divvy up two spots between them.
A Leicester win against an understrength Northampton side saw them seal third place, while Exeter and Saracens both won with bonus points.
Luckily for Sarries, they had the luxury of playing London Welsh on the final day, and buttressed their points difference so excessively that they bumped Exeter down to fifth. That means that Northampton will host Saracens and Leicester will travel to Bath.
But while the standard of rugby might have caught up with the combined BT/Sky hype machine, don’t think they aren’t still prone to hyperbole.
Sam Burgess scored for Bath and it will probably end up leading Rugby Tonight next week.
