According to the cliché a rugby season is a marathon not a sprint, but if recent seasons are anything to go by, a fast start is crucial to a team’s hopes. Wayne Pivac’s Scarlets may be the exception that proves the rule, but generally teams who end up champions have got off to a flyer. Of the last five Guinness PRO14 champions, only the Scarlets did not win their opening match of the campaign, and they were also the only side not to come away with three wins from their first four matches. Not all wins are created equal of course – who can forget Leinster’s last-gasp success to open the season in Cardiff a year ago? That was a crucial victory that set them on course to cruise to top spot in Conference B and eventually win the title against Glasgow Warriors at Celtic Park. The previous season it was again in Wales, this time in Newport, that Leinster made a winning start to their campaign, while Connacht and Glasgow both flew out of the blocks on their way to the title in 2016 and 2015 respectively. The Scarlets, on the other hand, famously lost their first three matches in the year they won the title, but were able to turn things around from that point onwards, losing just twice the rest of the way. Even so, they still had to do something unprecedented in winning an away semi-final, becoming the first team to do so despite playing more than half the game with 14 men. The Scarlets are the only recent champion to have had a worse win/loss percentage in their first four games than in the regular season as a whole which would tend to indicate that a strong start to the campaign can offer a buffer to teams later in the campaign.
