Bath plans have been altered

New coaches but with largely the same personnel, Bath have obviously made a change in the way they will be approaching this season and it looks quite clear that winning ugly will be not be a problem.

Apart from a few late defensive jitters that helped flatter the Saints score line, Bath were in complete control at Franklin’s Gardens as they registered their first win at Northampton in 16 years.

As the rain lashed down the Bath of old may well have continued to play with ball in hand, but on this occasion George Ford managed conditions perfectly as he dropped two goals and ended up with a 100% kicking ratio. There were only 4 drop goals in the whole of the Premiership last season and Ford hadn’t dropped one himself for two years, which clearly indicates that Todd Blackadder and his team are looking to make their new charges much more versatile.

Money doesn’t always make you happy

It’s been on the cards for nearly a year but it looks as though the great Toulon story may well be starting to hit the skids.

Played three, won one and lost two, including their only home game so far and a seriously disgruntled and meddling owner publically letting his feelings know about his ‘superstars’.

Brive won for the first time in Toulon for over a decade at the weekend, prompting Mourad Boudjellal, the eccentric owner to label his team as ‘rubbish’ and ‘playing to stay up’.

This isn’t the first time that Boudjellal has attacked his players in public but if his team doesn’t improve quickly then we could have an internal war going on in the South of France.

Getting to the top is the easy part, staying there however…

The surprise winners of the 2016 PRO12 came back to the earth with a large bump on Saturday as Glasgow travelled to Ireland and promptly scored 6 tries to give Connacht a hammering in their own back yard.

Connacht did not play well but we mustn’t take anything away from Glasgow, who looked like the pick of the teams in the British Isles over the weekend. They have certainly hit the ground running with slick handling, cute offloading and a string of powerful runners all willing to cause damage to the Connacht defensive line.

It is clear that Glasgow want their title back and in Gregor Townsend’s final season at the helm, they look very determined to do just that.

Wounded Tigers won’t lie down and die easily

It was the same old Gloucester on Friday night as they went from looking like world beaters to Premiership also rans in the space of 30 second half minutes.

That said, credit needs to go to Leicester for scoring 31 unanswered points at a point a minute to miraculously pull of a victory that silenced the Shed.

Tigers have undoubted quality and the addition of JP Pietersen looks like a master stroke as he had a hand in nearly every try. If Manu Tuliagi can find his best form, their back line could be scintillating and extremely hard to beat, but they cannot afford to play the way they did for the first 50 minutes of this match if they want to be considered title contenders.

London Welsh’s plight a stark reminder that Premiership is not always the Promised Land

Thankfully, London Welsh avoided a winding up order after the weekend but it must be noted that before they had either of their one-year stints in the Premiership, this was a club steeped in history that never struggled to finance itself or the players.

This is the second time in the space of 5 months that they have almost gone into liquidation and with the RFU not increasing their funding in the new deal with the top clubs in England, it is more than likely that the gap between the Premiership and Championship will become greater both financially and on the pitch.

The RFU need to review this very quickly and parachute payments to relegated clubs should be considered because aiming for Premiership status and facilities with a Championship budget is just not sustainable.

Cardiff’s advertising is just plane silly

Now we all realise that the Pro12 is not the most affluent league in the world and sponsorship money is key to their survival, but Cardiff have taken it to new levels as a model plane plastered with their sponsors’ aviation logos now brings on the kicking tee for kicks at goal.

The biggest issue that I have with this is that secretly I quite like it and it brought me a bit of entertainment but I can’t see it catching on…that reminds me, I must book my week in Marbella.

Andy Daniel
Follow Andy on Twitter (@scrum5ive)

Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images