Sat in the central London offices of Premiership sponsors Gallagher this week, Simon Massie-Taylor cut a contented figure. Twelve months ago in the week of the Premiership final, the English top flight’s chief executive was fretting over how he would deliver the news to stakeholders that he was set to lose a third professional club in a single season – London Irish’s demise impending as Saracens beat Sale at a far-from-full Twickenham after a season where negative noise and news had been the prevailing theme.
Even coverage of that final itself was dominated by the arrival of a protester dusted in orange – although as another Premiership executive joked this week, it did at least get club rugby on the back pages.
