Premiership Rugby Betting Tips

Organised rugby union leagues in England were long resisted by the Rugby Football Union (RFU) with English rugby clubs arranging their own fixtures. In 1972 the RFU sanctioned a national knock-out cup called the RFU Club Competition.

The rugby union league system in England began in 1987 which was called the Courage Leagues, a league system with approximately 1000 clubs playing in 108 leagues, each with their own promotion and relegation systems.

The clubs involved in the 1987-88 Courage League were Bath, Bristol, Coventry, Gloucester, Harlequins, Leicester, Moseley, Nottingham, Orrell, Sale, Wasps and Waterloo. The season was a success due to increased crowds and interest from local and national sponsors.

For the 1988-89 season the RFU allocated fixed Saturdays to the league season that removed the clubs' responsibility for scheduling fixtures. There was no home and away structure with clubs playing each other once.

Bath and Leicester dominated the Courage League in the early years of the Courage League. In 1994 the competition expanded to include home and away matches and the 1994-95 season was shown live on Sky Sports until the 2013-14 season when BT Sport acquired the exclusive rights.

The Courage League became professional in 1996 with clubs including Saracens, Newcastle, Northampton and London Wasps able to attract financial firepower to be able to cpmpete with traditional powerhouse clubs Bath and Leicester. Rugby union turning professional also had a downside for certain clubs with West Hartlepool, Richmond and London Scottish forced into administration.

The 2000-01 season saw a change in the season structure with an 8-team playoff (Championship) introduced but the club finishing top of the table at the end of the regular season crowned English champions and awarded the Premiership title.

From 1987 to 2002 the team at the top of the table was crowned English champions. A new playoff format was introduced to replace the 8-team Championship at the start of the 2002-03 season, the winner of the league awarded to the winner of the Premiership Final at Twickenham in London.

Since the introduction of the playoff system, only four teams have won the regular season and playoffs in the same year. Those teams were Leicester in 2000-01, 2008-09 and 2009-10, Sale Sharks in 2005-06, Harlequins in 2011-12 and Saracens in 2015-16.

Wasps earned a reputation of peaking at the right time after winning the English Champions in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2008 without leading the league table. Gloucester were the opposite, topping the regular season table in 2003, 2007 and 2008 before losing the final in each year.

In 2013 the possibility of playing Premiership Rugby matches in the USA was discussed, the first match played in the USA occuring on 12 March 2016 when London Irish were defeated by Saracens at the Red Bull Arena in the New York.