PWR has now confirmed the details of the revised opening stages of the 2024-25 season.
It’s a great pity that the smooth running of the league has had to be interrupted once more. In one instance it was beyond the authorities’ control – the pandemic. In others it’s been because of the self-imposed three-year cycle; twice in succession two clubs have been ousted and replaced. A third cause, still not conquered, is the ever-present fear of financial undoing. Yet another was PWR’s arrival to replace the Premier 15s league.
For the coming season the reason is far more positive, the looming presence of a home World Cup.
Any hope of a tenth club being introduced, to replace the late lamented Worcester Warriors, has been quietly brushed under the carpet.
So we are offered three ‘regions’ of three, comprising:
1. Bristol Bears, Exeter Chiefs and Gloucester-Hartpury
2. Harlequins, Saracens and Trailfinders
3. Leicester Tigers, Loughborough Lightning and Sale Sharks
The term ‘region’ needs its inverted commas, since that third pool does not describe a region. The first two clubs belong to the East Midlands, once the powerhouse of English rugby, led by Bedford, Northampton and Leicester. By a strange coincidence Lightning now play all their games far from home in Northampton.
But the Sharks, already the outliers in the current set-up, find themselves jostling with two clubs that lie far to their south. So the phrase “full-blooded local rivalries in every fixture” is an unfortunate misrepresentation by PWR of the true nature of the arrangement.
The PWR statement mischievously masks this fact by avoiding any mention of Sharks in its summary. All we are offered about Pool Three is “Leicester Tigers will travel to East Midlands adversaries Loughborough Lightning in the third round of the PWR Up Series”.
The Structure
The three-week pattern is becoming familiar to us. The first, September 7, sees one Saturday and two Sunday matches; the second, two Saturday matches and one Sunday; the third is the latest version of a Super Saturday, only we are spared that term here. At last there is an indirect mention of Sharks. Their final game is set for the CorpAcq Stadium, the only match of the nine to take place north of the Trent.
I hesistate to invoke the term ‘levelling up’.
The balance of the three regional pools:
A single glance reveals huge disparities in achievement between the three pools. Purely in terms of last season’s results, we see two finalists in Pool 1, one semi-finalist in Pool 2 and none in Pool 3. Bears, G-H and Chiefs finished respectively runners-up, champions and fourth in the knock-outs.
Saracens were surprisingly beaten for a place in the final; Trailfinders and Quins finished sixth and seventh.
Sharks and Tigers finished eighth and ninth; Lightning fifth. So it’s fortunate that this one-off arrangement does not take us further into knock-out stages. It is merely a chance to warm up for the real thing.
It’s also fortunate that the transfer season is still in full swing, adding a vital ingredient of doubt to the mixture.
Afterthoughts
I hope you like the term “PWR Up Series”. ‘Up what?’ remains an unanswered question.
Two of the nine clubs will have a new head coach in place. Leicester Tigers have appointed Tom Hudson and Quins Ross Chisholm. That leaves a mere three women in charge: Giselle Mather, Rachel Taylor and Susie Appleby.
