In a perfect world the countdown to a new season would be all about the rugby. Can Northampton Saints and Glasgow Warriors successfully defend their hard-earned respective Premiership and United Rugby Championship titles? If not, who will be their biggest threats? And which individuals have the ability to exchange relative anonymity for a place in Andy Farrell’s British & Irish Lions squad next summer?
The weather is half-decent, the pitches firm, the scent of freshly cut grass and embrocation reliably evocative. There is just one sizeable drawback, as every professional club executive can testify. Primarily, it is all about the price tag and whether or not the sums stack up. Out in the real world it is less a case of smelling the Deep Heat than absorbing the financial pain.
