LONG READ Mick Cleary: 'The newly-branded PREM will have to be at its knuckle-duster aggressive best in the fight to make a mark.'

No Pressure Prem. Only the Women’s World Cup final to go up against for opening skirmish weekend (even if no direct clash of matches). Only the Ryder Cup for attracting eyeballs and headlines. Only the most competitive Rugby Championship in years with tries and controversy and unexpectedness. Yep, those numpties who pushed for a summer rugby finish and later start to the league season really got their timings spot on. The newly-branded PREM will have to be at its most knuckle-duster aggressive best in the fight to make a mark. Seconds out!

Yet there is no reason to fear that it won’t pack a punch. Eventually. This may well be a low-key launchpad for the nine month mission but for the first time in ages there is a sense of anticipation in the air. Perhaps it’s the spring-in-the-step Red Bull effect. Perhaps it’s the feel-good vibes from those very rugby events mentioned. The women’s World Cup may have been a slow burner but it has undoubtedly set the up-tempo mood music and got many thousands of fans switched on to rugby. Those converts may have tuned in for the female fix but the game is the game. There is a burgeoning market there to be seduced.

The thrills and spills of the Rugby Championship have also whetted the taste buds. There is always a danger that what you have seen most recently affects your judgment but there is a sense that the high-octane performances of the Big Four from the southern hemisphere have been at an intensity that as a cut above what we witnessed on the Lions tour.

Quite whether England manage to scale such heights of ambition and imagination and execution is for another day. But there is plenty of reason to expect the Prem to give us the self-same style of play for the simple reason that it has been serving up that dynamic sort of rugby for the last couple of seasons. More tries, more fun. There are still worry-lines, the economic market not the last of them. Red Bulls’ front-of-house backing of Newcastle has blown away some of the anxiety cobwebs that have threatened to suffocate the sport. Of course, one sponsor does not a summer make but after the demise of Wasps, London Irish and Worcester (welcome back the Warriors at least) big-time investment of the sort that Red Bull represents can only be a good thing and a much-needed lifeline to the north-east. Even Steve Diamond has started to smile again after years of groaning under the weight of living in survival mode only.

It will take more than some sloganizing to get the young to be distracted from their screens but if it is a matter of paving the way from more profound changes ahead then it’s only right that we should give them the benefit of the doubt for at least not just sitting on their backsides.

There are still stacks of issues that stalk the sport – the uncertain calendar, the new tours schedule, the threat, real as well as existential, from the rebel R360 circus for starters. The abyss that Welsh rugby finds itself in should be a warning about the future viability of professional club rugby. The signs are, though, that PREM rugby is aware of the precarious world in which we live and is taking steps to be responsive as well as proactive.

The tinkering with title names is a marketing exercise which may or may not have much effect. It will take more than some sloganizing to get the young to be distracted from their screens but if it is a matter of paving the way from more profound changes ahead then it’s only right that we should give them the benefit of the doubt for at least not just sitting on their backsides.

There is a lot of onus on the clubs to get their act together and provide a product that grabs the attention, all the more now that it appears a ring-fenced Premiership is about to be set in stone for the foreseeable future. It has been like that de facto, of course, for a few years in that no Championship club has passed the Ts & Cs infrastructure regs. If the franchise route is the chosen way forward by the Prem, with expansion a theoretical possibility, then it has to generate an elevated sense of drama on the field if there is to be no jeopardy in terms of relegation. The Top 14 in France is light-years ahead of the rest as things stand.

The English clubs are in need of an uptick. They have fallen behind the eight-ball in terms of their prowess in Europe, the heroics of Northampton Saints last season notwithstanding. It’s time for Bath to push for that sort of status along with the other leading Prem fancies such as Sale Sharks, Leicester Tiger, Saints and Sarries. If Bristol Bears can learn to defend with the same alacrity and accuracy that they attack then they too should be contenders.

The sooner, though, the Premiership manages to host a 12 rather than a 10 club league the better. The fixture list across any given weekend is too skinny.

Champions Bath lead the bookies rankings and there is no reason to go against that reckoning even though they have lost their attacking maestro, Lee Blackett, to England. There is now enough proven strength and depth in their ranks to suggest that what might have been a hefty blow to their prospects following Blackett’s departure might well be absorbed, all the more so given the quality of such signings as Henry Arundell and Santi Carreras. The sooner Ollie Lawrence is back on the field in full-bore action the better for all concerned.

If the PREM is live up to expectation then Bath Rugby need to be challenged right throughout the season. The Rugby Championship has shown that the toppling of favourites is the single most potent attribute of any competition worth its salt. The stats indicate that the Prem is headed that way with half a dozen different recent winners and eight clubs contesting the play-offs across the same period. The sooner, though, the Premiership manages to host a 12 rather than a 10 club league the better. The fixture list across any given weekend is too skinny.

Who might topple the champs? Saints are in the mix, so too Sale Sharks and an Owen Farrell-restored Saracens with Max Malins stepping back into the well-worn boots of the retired Alex Goode. And last season’ finalists, Leicester Tigers? Interesting. With their third head coach, Geoff Parling, at the helm there is a degree of uncertainty there. Likewise with Harlequins and the abrupt loss of Danny Wilson. Can Exeter Chiefs start the long climb back up the ladder, boosted by the arrivals of Aussies, Len Ikitau and Tom Hooper?

There are several other plot lines to investigate, other draw-card players such as wing, Louis Rees-Zammit and utility back, Tom Jordan, to name-check. The PREM may be a late arrival but it promises to deliver.