Gallagher Premiership Rugby is back! What to look out for in the 2023/24 season as Saracens aim to defend title

TNT Sports will be there every step of the way, starting with a live game being shown every day over the opening weekend.

On Friday, October 13, the curtain-raising fixture sees Bristol Bears host 2021/22 champions Leicester Tigers at Ashton Gate.

Sarries get their title defence underway in Exeter on Saturday, before last season’s runners-up Sale host Northampton on Sunday.

All three games will be shown live on TNT Sports, while elsewhere Gloucester host Harlequins, and Newcastle travel to Bath to complete the opening set of fixtures.

Before the action kicks off, what are the big talking points going into the new season?

We look ahead to what promises to be another thrilling campaign in the English top flight.

There is one rather large elephant in the room as the Gallagher Premiership Rugby season kicks off – the Rugby World Cup.

The quarter-finals will be taking place over in France while the domestic battles begin in England, and as a result, the Premiership sides are missing a significant contingent of star players.

But in their absence comes opportunity for players who have the chance to show what they can do and put up their hands for selection going forward.

It won’t just be this weekend, either. The World Cup final is on October 28 and after the tournament is over, players who featured will need some rest and recovery time, so how clubs cope in the meantime could have a big say on how the season pans out.

That makes the early-season fixtures harder to call than ever – who will be able to make a fast start while the 10 clubs wait for their international stars to return?

In a league where there have been four different champions in the last four years, pre-season predictions can be tricky.

But title holders Saracens go into 2023/24 as the favourites to reclaim the crown after winning their sixth title in nine years last season.

But Sale were agonisingly close to ending a 17-year wait for a league title last term, and look even stronger now following the arrivals of two world-class hookers in Agustin Creevy and Luke Cowan-Dickie, complementing a squad that already boasts the likes of George Ford, Tom Curry, Manu Tuilagi and try machine Tom Roebuck.

Harlequins, champions in 2021, are looking for greater consistency this season after missing out on the top four last time out. They boast some of the league’s most dazzling star quality in Marcus Smith and Cadan Murley, and have brought in Joe Launchbury and Dillon Lewis to bolster the pack.

Australian Dan McKellar has taken the reins at Leicester to try and launch another bid for the title, while there is plenty of intrigue around what Bath could do with new signing Finn Russell pulling the strings.

Scotland’s creator-in-chief Russell has been the signing of the summer, and Bath’s business didn’t end there as they brought in a World Cup-winning Springbok prop in Thomas du Toit.

Leicester are under new management as McKellar looks to mould a new Tigers side that features exciting new arrivals in the back division in Ollie Hassell-Collins and Solomone Kata.

Champions Sarries haven’t stood still, adding Argentina back-row Juan Martin Gonzalez and England international Tom Willis, while Quins have signed England lock Joe Launchbury and Wales prop Dillon Lewis.

Cowan-Dickie and Creevy have joined Sale to give them staggering depth at hooker, while Gloucester hit the headlines with their capture of back row Zach Mercer, who returns to the Premiership following a spell in France.

While Bristol have lost two talismanic stars in the departing Semi Radradra and Charles Piutau, they have replaced them impressively with former France star Virimi Vakatawa and England’s Max Malins.

The Premiership will feature just 10 teams in 2023/24 after an awful year for domestic rugby off the pitch saw three clubs suffer expulsion.

This will therefore be the first time the Premiership has been a 10-team league since 1995/96.

It is a sorry, sad situation that has left the top-flight stripped of three of its biggest and best-supported clubs, and rugby fans across the country will be hoping against hope that there will be no more problems ahead.

Clear your calendar for the weekend of November 17-19, otherwise known as Derby Weekend.

Over three days, every fixture in the Premiership will be a grudge match: the West Country Derbies – Bath v Bristol and Exeter v Gloucester – the London Derby between Harlequins and Saracens, the East Midlands Derby between Northampton and Leicester, and the Northern Derby between Sale and Newcastle.

All five fixtures take place in Round 6, by which time the international stars will likely be back for what promises to be a superb spectacle.

Not only do we have the Premiership play-offs and final to look forward to at the end of the season, but this year there will also be a nerve-jangling promotion/relegation play-off.

The team that finishes top of the Championship in 2023/24 will have a chance to gain promotion when they face the bottom-placed team in the Premiership over two legs at the end of the season.