The Premiership can claim to be relentlessly competitive but Europe will be the test of whether standards have really risen
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There are two schools of thought out there – and probably always will be. The first is that the Gallagher Premiership, English rugby’s flagship competition, is the toughest league in the world. The second, most often heard across the
Irish Sea, is that saying something loudly and often enough does not automatically make it true, particularly when Leinster put out their best available side.
It is one of those tail-chasing arguments that rarely produces a definitive conclusion, even at this time of the year. Does it really mean, if Leinster were to smash a severely diluted Bath in the Heineken Champions Cup this Saturday, that the English are all lame ducks? Or vice versa if Munster, currently ensnared in Covid’s web, cannot conquer Wasps in Coventry? As representative samples go, neither feels massively scientific.