Brendan Gallagher

Brendan Gallagher: Longer seasons don’t give us much in return

Brendan Gallagher argues that rugby’s domestic season has become longer despite featuring fewer meaningful matches than in the early years of professionalism.

by
Brendan Gallagher
7 June 2026

Alex King and Lawrence Dallaglio in 1997

So here we are, it’s June 7, 2026 and we’ve still got two weeks of the English domestic season to go and frankly it makes little sense.
It’s the cricket season for heaven’s sake, the second Test against New Zealand, at The Oval, could be over before the English rugby season ends and that grunting and screeching you can hear is the tennis players warming up for Wimbledon.

Why are we inflicting these artificially long seasons on players and supporters alike when in fact we have less competitive rugby to enjoy?
We are getting less meaningful action than ever before and it is being spread thin...

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