Five storylines to watch in the Premiership, including the battle at the top and Six Nations spots

It’s round nine and nearly the halfway point of the Premiership season, and it could not be tighter at the top, with the top six clubs all within four points of each other.

So there are sub-plots aplenty this weekend, from the kick-off in Sale to the finale in Bath on Sunday.

Sharks lurking with intent

Having sent a second-string to Leinster last weekend and then promptly recalled them all for the visit of Saracens on Friday, Sale Sharks have made their priorities for the season pretty clear.

That includes a focus on home matches over away matches, too. The Sharks’ two losses this season have both been away from home, a drubbing in Exeter and a pounding in London at Harlequins.

Injuries play a part in team selection, but Alex Sanderson is clearly targeting specific games, with what appears to be a 100 per cent success rate so far in terms of games he wants to win and games he is prepared to lose for the sake of squad freshness.

This weekend provides the acid test for that strategy when Sale’s full team takes on a Saracens side bursting with confidence, experience and with designs on the top of the table at Christmas of their own. If Sale’s freshness can outlast Saracens’ current rhythm, Sale are in a good place ahead of the new year.

The two matchday 23s are littered with players who will fancy their chances of cracking Steve Borthwick’s Six Nations squad early next year, and this game provides another excellent opportunity to put their case forward.

There is a hummerdinger head-to-head between Owen Farrell, who is taking a break from international rugby for the Six Nations, and his potential replacement, George Ford. While Luke Cowan-Dickie will be out to make a splash off the Sharks’ bench with two of England’s World Cup hookers featuring for Saracens. Manu Tuilagi will have a point to prove, as will the Vunipola brothers. There is also a buzz about Saracens’ rookie Olly Hartley, who has been entrusted with a starting role after scoring a brace against Connacht.

Just one will do

The habit life has of kicking you when you are down can be astonishingly difficult to stomach. So when Newcastle Falcons were faced with a cancelled flight back from Johannesburg on the back of a 15-week run of fixtures without a win and with stories of financial difficulties at the club refusing to disappear, you’d not blame the team for being a little downtrodden and rusty this weekend.

Yet it presents a clear chance to break their duck, at home to a Bristol team in remarkably inconsistent form and with the weather in the north-east of England set to be at its playing field-levelling best.

We’ll see which team stands tallest in the tempest. But after the months they have had, nobody would begrudge Newcastle a win for Christmas.

Form faces form at Sandy Park

No two English teams made a splash in Europe the past fortnight like Exeter Chiefs and Leicester Tigers, both notching highly impressive pairs of wins against opposition that might be regarded as superior.

Both made sluggish starts to the season, but both have been on fine recent runs, with Exeter’s defeat at Bath the only blot on either team’s copybook since both were beaten in early November.

Leicester announced a raft of new contract signings on Thursday, adding to a feel-good aura pervading Welford Road, but the Chiefs have produced back-to-back backs-to-the-walls victories over the past fortnight, the kind of wins that champions are capable of. A big moment in both their seasons.

Will the European break have refreshed Gloucester?

Northampton Saints are another team in good form, but after a run that has seen them face Harlequins, Saracens, and two European matches, a trip to the Shed will test the Saints’ power of endurance.

Gloucester hardly had it easy in Europe, but a brace of wins, an impressive one away in Tbilisi and an even more impressive quashing of Clermont have eased the pressure on George Skivington somewhat.

Winning is a habit, and after the fresh air of European rugby, Gloucester might fancy a further pressure-easing win against a Northampton team nursing a lot of sore bodies and in front of an expectant Shed.

Will the real Harlequins please stand up?

So what are Harlequins exactly? The team that extinguished Sale three weeks ago or the one that collapsed lifelessly at home to Saracens two weeks before that?

The one that went to Paris and came back with five points from Racing 92 or the one that was swatted aside by Toulouse? The one that eked out a win at Welford Road but just couldn’t find the killer blow at Northampton?

Quins remain England’s most enigmatic team, deadly when in the mood and the groove but dreadfully hard to put in either. A Sunday trip to Bath, who have averaged 39 points a game since losing to Sale a month ago, could be a classic, but it could also be further evidence that under the fine sheen to Harlequins’ game, there is too soft a centre.

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