Bath? Very brave bet...
This year's Prem will be very interesting. At full strength you would have said there are 3 teams who are clearly head and shoulders above the rest - Saracens, Leicester and Northampton. However, half of Leicester's population's been at the World Cup while Northampton have no depth to cover their RWC losses, which means both of those clubs have had shocking starts to the seasons. Sarries have been less affected and will be delighted with 5 from 6 so far - out of these 3, Saracens have to be favourites. The other two have a lot of work to do, but a two week break for the Pointless Cup should help them reintegrate their returning world cup players.
From the rest, Sale, Irish and especially Harlequins will be delighted with their starts to the season. Sale are a bit of a maverick club - I'm not sure they'll be able to sustain their position and form once the 'stronger' squads hit their straps - they fall in the same group as Wasps for me. Irish and Quins, however, do have the potential, and Quins in particular have their form of the Richards era to back it up with. Bath and Gloucester are also strong teams who could threaten with a real run of form.
So, from this I'd say the only certainties for the playoffs are Saracens.
The remaining places will be made up, probably, by any three out of Quins, Leicester, Northampton, Bath, Gloucester or Irish. My money's on the bolded.
Whoever wins the ***le only has to really turn up the heat in the playoffs. Based on form, squad class, squad depth, experience and personal bias, I'm gonna go for Saracens to make it back to back ***les. But since rugby is never that simple, it'll probably be someone else.
