When former Rugby Football Union chief executive Ian Ritchie gets established as chairman of Premiership Rugby, he might find RFU infighting is a mere bagatelle compared to Premiership Rugby politics. Ritchie might already have worked out the landscape, but in case he has not, there are things he should know.

There are two power blocks in Premiership rugby that clash with each other on nearly every issue.

As with the salary-cap breach fiasco, the powerhouse clubs of Bath, Leicester, Saracens, Bristol and, for reasons other than megabucks, Exeter, roughly align in one camp, with the rest having numerical superiority but less cash: a lot less cash. 

Unsurprisingly, the questionable influence of...