LONG READ Ben Kay: Five key areas to watch in this year's Gallagher Prem

It’s a pivotal season for the Prem. There’s been a rebrand and a groundswell of positivity, thanks to the quality of the rugby last year and the competitive nature of the league that has seen six different winners in the last six years. The viewing figures were all up last year, too, showing the game is reaching new parts but there’s still unease about fully relaxing because we’re just recovering from the post-pandemic era, which led to losses and widespread panic. Indeed, there is still concern of how expensive it is to run Prem Rugby sides still over reliant on the funding of private owners and what would transpire if something happened to one of the benefactors. Yet, the show must go on with the threat of R360 looming.

Here are the key storylines I will be keeping my eye on…

Can Redbull give Newcastle wings?

Arguably the most significant news of the summer was Red Bull’s takeover of Newcastle after an interminable wait. It was welcome news not just for Newcastle but for the entire league because there were rumours they were on borrowed time, and other clubs were bailing them out to stop the going reducing to nine teams, which would have been sub-optimal to put it mildly. Once the deal finally got over the line, the true excitement of what Red Bull could bring ratcheted up. You look at their history. They partnered with Ford Formula 1 for £1 and turned one of the worst performing teams into a dominant force in the sport. They have a hugely successful football operation. They go viral on social media with some of their extreme sport stunts. They’re not some faceless financial institution putting some money in and rescuing them, it’s more about having top-end a sporting marketer swooping in and making and everyone above them looking over their shoulders and think, ‘they’re coming for us’. This should, in theory, drive on performance amongst the other clubs.

I was up there the other week and the atmosphere has completely changed. It’s always been a really down-to-earth welcoming club, but the positive vibe was on a different level. They’re not going to win the league this year, that’s clear, but no one would have failed to notice Christian Wade and Liam Williams coming through the front door, and they’ll be the first of many. Red Bull will be assessing them from top to bottom, looking at their facilities and how they can give the athletes the full 360 package. They will have to adhere to the salary cap, but they could ape someone like Saracens who were brilliant with the package they put in off the field, like putting a creche and investing in the education and entrepreneurship of players. The other big thing will be about keeping the talent pipeline in the North-East. In recent years, they’ve lost Callum Chick, Guy Pepper, Jamie Blaimire and many others. They need to make it a genuine destination club rather than a selling club. They still have some local talent there, but they need older heads to help them carve out a few wins. Things are looking up in the North-East, don’t forget Newcastle United are now in the Champions League again and playing Barcelona, so the Red Bull deal has added to the feelgood factor in the area.

Can old stagers, Owen Farrell and James O’Connor, inspire Saracens and Leicester to silverware?

With Owen Farrell and James O’Connor returning to the Prem, you have two fly-halves who can both play adeptly in other positions while boasting vastly different reputations. O’Connor is somewhat unfairly maligned as a bit of a playboy who didn’t make the most of his talent, while Farrell is seen as a hard taskmaster with sky-high standards, yet there are similarities. Both are in the Indian summer of their careers and both could make fine mentors and future coaches. O’Connor will be seeing this as an opportunity to guide the likes of Orlando Bailey and Farrell will be exacting in his expectations of everyone around him. I’m excited to see how they evolve because coaching is hard. Farrell and O’Connor are so good at what they do that they may struggle when other players can’t replicate what they do but whatever happens they have so much rugby IP to impart. They’ll be almost like player-coaches on the field, similar to George Ford at Sale. They will have different messaging to young players.

For O’Connor, he’s made well-documented mistakes early in his career, so he can put an arm round their shoulders with a smile and, ‘I’ve done this and that, and it’s not sensible’, whereas contrastingly Owen Farrell has always set the standards. When he speaks the youngsters will listen. Both have an aura and are global superstars. Farrell is at a similar stage of his life to Andy when came over to rugby union and segued into the coaching realms and look at him now. Everyone will compare Owen to his dad and speculate whether he can climb the coaching tree to coach the Lions in future. When he finally hangs up his playing boots, we’ll see if he can temper his drive, a bit like Jonny Sexton. When you’re not on the field with players you have to soften your tone a bit. He’s such a heart on sleeve guy, but he’ll have to adapt.

Can Bath back it up and add Europe to their accomplishments?

Bath clearly have the strongest squad in the Premiership and they are odds-on to win the Premiership again. They’ve strengthened again the squad over the summer and rival fans are questioning how they’ve stayed within the salary cap. There are ways and means of doing that, but you usually have pain coming down the line. You can backload contracts, so the new signing gets a lot more in the last year of their contract and that’s probably what they’ve done. They’ve thought, ‘this is our time, we’ve reached the top and we want to stay there, let’s double-down’. Their recruitment suggests to me that Bruce Craig would like to win in Europe. There’s also the green light for the new stadium is amazing. The Rec is one of the most beautiful locations for a ground but it’s also one of the most dilapidated in the Prem.

One fly in the ointment is they’ll now have to work out how to operate without Lee Blackett who has joined Steve Borthwick’s coaching ticket. We’ll know where they’re at in their quest to conquer all on December 14 when they travel to the Stade Mayol and face Toulon. They had so much talent in that backline and to add Henry Arundell and Santiago Carreras makes you almost giddy. Finn Russell does seem like the missing part of the jigsaw. He has such a relaxed demeanour and that’s infectious. In a way, he empowers his team-mates to take a few risks. With the firepower they now have, we’ll see how many signings they’re off matching a big French side or Leinster. They also have Munster and Castres in the Champions Cup, so it will be interesting if they back themselves to put the Prem on the backburner and back themselves to make a late run for the play-offs. It’s a good time to be a Bath fan right now.

Why I’m in favour of the 20-minute red card

I totally understand people’s concerns about the introduction of the 20-minute red card. Some will say it doesn’t do the right thing by player welfare, but personally I’ve been a big advocate for many years of an orange card, but this is a trial to add to the research and data that has been collected from other competitions. The reason you have dissenters is that they claim, ‘it won’t change behaviour’ but this isn’t a change that has been implemented without evidence. All law changes have vast data sets to see whether they improve the game or not. They have evidence to suggest that the 20-minute card is just as likely to change behaviour as giving a red card. And this season’s trial will give us more opportunity to test that. The game is so fast and dynamic these days. In the modern era most red card situations often arise when the offending player’s focus is on someone else and he’s reacted in an instinctive, yet not intentional way. I’ve heard idle chat about players going out and saying, ‘I’m going to go and sacrifice myself and maim their best player’ but in my experience, it just doesn’t happen. Players are more worried about giving another player an opportunity to take their place. In essence, you are punishing the individual and you are punishing the team, because they’re without a player for 20 minutes.  Then you can bring someone on, which helps the game. But more importantly there is still a permanent red card for something deemed not accidental or always illegal and don’t forget, players can still ban that player if they’ve erred.

The key point here is when a new law change is introduced referees often  come down a lot harder and dole out cards. Think of the competing in the air a few seasons ago, where refs were really strict because that was the big focus, or how high shots were originally refereed. What can happen after time is that referees suddenly start paring back and trying to talk themselves out of giving a red card, especially if the incident occurs in the opening minutes because of the impact it could have on the spectacle. So for those saying it’s not a deterrent, we may actually see more red cards because subconsciously refs know not it won’t be ruining the game. The other thing we may get is an incident where fans will go, ‘look, there you go, I told you so, he hasn’t learnt his lesson’, after someone commits a similar offence in the same season,’ but data doesn’t work on solitary incidents, it looks at trends, like lowering the tackle height. It’s easy to say, ‘oh look, it hasn’t worked’, but if you look at it over a period, you find that illegal head impacts are going down.

Why Len Ikitau could prove to be the signing of the season

I was excited pre-summer when I saw Len Ikitau was coming after what he’d done in last year’s Autumn Internationals but whomever is working on recruitment at Exeter Chiefs deserves a massive pat on the back for snagging one of the best players in the world this year. I know that everyone talked about Will Skelton’s influence during the Lions but for me Ikitau was the standout player of the Series. I know Joseph Suaalii get all the hype but I think Ikitau has been the better centre this year. He just does the basics at a high level and seems to have everything they need to move them back up the table; he gives you go-forward, has great hands, he’s intelligent, seems a popular guy amongst the squad. He’s a superstar-in-making and they probably got him on a cheaper deal than if they were in the market after the Lions.

Tom Hooper looks a pretty handy back five player, who should help bolster the pack which hasn’t had the heft of old. They’ve been stuck in that middle patch of not being able to play like they used to play but also not quite evolving to the new style of play their players allow, but if they build a platform to feed Immanuel Feyi-Waboso and Paul-Brown Bampoe, they could surprise a few people.