sport news Lawrence Dallaglio, Ben Kay and Ugo Monye speak ahead of the Gallagher ... trends now

The 2022/23 Gallagher Premiership season will begin on Saturday, a day later than initially planned following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday.

Bristol against Bath and Sale against Northampton Saints had been due to kick-off the campaign on Friday night, but those games have now been put back to Saturday and Sunday respectively.

The matches originally scheduled for Saturday will proceed as normal as professional rugby in England plays on, unlike football’s Premier League.

With a World Cup in France to follow at the end of the new campaign, it’s a huge year to come for the rugby world.

Almost all of the build-up to the next 12 months has not been focused on the field but instead been dominated by the financial plight of Worcester Warriors.

Here, BT Sport pundits Lawrence Dallaglio, Ben Kay and Ugo Monye talk Sportsmail’s Alex Bywater through their views on what’s been going on at Sixways and the year ahead…

Question: What have you made of Worcester’s financial plight and how worrying is it for the Premiership and English rugby?

Lawrence Dallaglio: ‘The last two to three years have had a massive impact on sport, particularly professional rugby. There are consequences of Covid coming home to roost now. Rather than being too pessimistic, what I would like to say is we have an opportunity now to accelerate our sport.

‘We must work together as much as we possibly can to make the situation better. I do feel we work in silos a little bit. There are 13 clubs in the Premiership and we are enemies. The sport relies on rivalry. We need a strong competition and need all the clubs to be part of it.

‘But I just feel that rightly or wrongly we have become somewhat disconnected from each other. A lot of that has been due to Covid. Everyone has been building their own battalion and not working together. We’ve got a new chief executive in Premiership Rugby in Simon Massie-Taylor who is a good guy. He’s been in rugby a long time and understands the pressures that exist on all sides.

‘The relationship between clubs, stakeholders and fans needs to grow. If that happens, the sport grows. Rugby clubs are enemies for 80 minutes each weekend, but we need to work and collaborate together to grow the game. I wouldn’t say rugby is at a crisis point because it’s not, but it is at a point where it needs to decide where it wants to go.

‘We have to do it quickly because there is catching up to do. We can’t afford to wait four or five years. If I had one wish for this season it would be that the clubs and people who run the clubs, plus the administrators and broadcasters, work a little bit closer together.’

Ben Kay: ‘Obviously it’s concerning.

‘For some fans, rugby has become a bit of a business and not all businesses have it rosy all of the time. You have to ride through economic conditions and financial uncertainty.

‘When you have something like the pandemic come along, all the plans you have are completely thrown into disarray.

‘The majority of income streams were taken away. Hopefully Worcester can survive because although they’re not at the top of the Premiership, they’ve got a really loyal set of fans, a good ground to go and visit, and I’m sure if they can get through this period they’ll be backed by renewed support from the fans who know how hard this time has been. No-one wants to see a team in a position like this but hopefully a solution can be found and Worcester can concentrate on playing. 

‘Steve Diamond has done very, very well. I’ve seen some responses to the social media work they’ve been doing and the #together message saying how well he’s led them through this.

‘Everyone is in the same boat and I genuinely do think if they can find a solution, then absolutely it can galvanise the team. Situations like this do give you more of a purpose and funnily enough can buy you a bit more loyalty because you are fighting for something you believe in.’

Ugo Monye: ‘It’s been terrible looking from the outside. There has been a huge level of uncertainty for the players, staff and support base. I’m just hoping they can find a positive solution as quickly as possible. It’s important those at the club can do their jobs to the best of their abilities but to do that, they need to have these distractions taken away. In Covid we all had a situation where no-one knew what was going on and I imagine this has been similar.’

Q: How do you see the Premiership season panning out and who do you think will win?

BK: ‘It’s impossible to say who is going to win. Just look at what happened last year. You’d expect Saracens to be up there at the end. Leicester’s chances will depend on how they do without some of the really important players they had last year. There will be a lot of pressure on Handre Pollard coming in but I think Leicester will be up in the top four even if they don’t finish top. If you look at the other clubs, for me the ones that will do best will be the ones with the most consistency in their squad. We’ve seen a lot of players leave clubs because of the reduction in the salary cap. Quite a few teams have lost some big names and replaced them with some less big names. There are also teams who lost a bit of their identity last season and are looking to regain it like Bristol and Exeter. I’m not expecting too many drastic changes this year.’