Lack of Lions at big kick-off but plenty to savour in new Premiership season

Saracens are again the team to beat, champions Exeter must not rest on their laurels, Leicester look strong once more, but club v country rows will growHe is far too laidback to acknowledge it but Jamie George provides the ideal case study to best explain the tangled web that is the domestic season – a campaign that kicks off on Friday with its unique blend of annual optimism and unseemly self-interest. The 26-year-old Saracens and British & Irish Lions hooker started all three Tests in New Zealand in a series the All Blacks were expected to waltz through, only for Warren Gatland’s troops …