Funfair rugby: is the Prem leaving England short for Australia?

LEEDS, England, Nov 6 : For try lovers, England is the place to be to watch club rugby - there were 18 alone in the Northampton-Bath Prem fixture last month.

The league averages 8.1 tries per game so far this season, which puts it out in front of the United Rugby Championship with 7.6 and the Top 14 in France with 7.2 as the entertainment capital of the European game.

The bang for the spectator buck is undeniable, even if some of the scorelines have veered too far towards basketball for some tastes.

How useful funfair rugby is as a primer for test rugby, though, we are about to find out as the Nations Championship window opens in Europe.

The concern for England coach Steve Borthwick is that - in the same way as boundary-packed T20 cricket is no sort of preparation for the five-day grind of test cricket - the domestic points bonanzas may have left his players short for the international arena.

The kind of open, expressive rugby which gets the ball in the hands of the likes of England's dangerous wingers Manny Feyi-Waboso and Tommy Freeman has to be a positive in one regard.

Those two in form are a handful for any defence and Freeman, in particular, who goes into Sunday's fixture against Australia with five tries in as many Prem games this season, is flying off the back of the brand of rugby English champions Northampton play.

The problems come in other areas. 

The breakdown contest against Australia is likely to be very different from the one in the Prem, which is heavily weighted in favour of the attacking side.

Ollie Chessum, who was coached by Borthwick at Leicester when they won what was then called the Premiership in 2022, says the England coach has earmarked the breakdown for specific attention in training ahead of the game.