2017–18 Premiership Rugby

The 2017–18 Premiership Rugby was the 31st season of the top flight of English domestic rugby union competition and the eighth and final one to be sponsored by Aviva. The competition was broadcast by BT Sport for the fifth successive season with five games also simulcast free-to-air on Channel 5 for the first time. Highlights of each weekend's games were shown on Channel 5 with extended highlights on BT Sport.
The reigning champions entering the season were Exeter Chiefs, who claimed their first title after defeating Wasps in the 2016–17 final.
For the third season in a row, the relegation/promotion battle involved a straight swap between London Irish, who were relegated in their first season back in the Premiership, and Bristol, promoted as champions in their first season in the Greene King IPA Championship.
Saracens won their fourth Premiership title by beating Exeter 27–10 on 26 May 2018 in the Grand Final at Twickenham.

Teams

, having beaten Yorkshire Carnegie 84–66 on aggregate in the 2016–17 Greene King IPA Championship play-off final, replace Bristol, who were relegated last season after finishing bottom of the table.

Club	Coach	Captain	Kit supplier	Stadium	Capacity	City/Area
Bath	Todd Blackadder	Matt Garvey	Canterbury	The Recreation Ground	14,500	Bath, Somerset
Exeter Chiefs	Rob Baxter	Jack Yeandle	Samurai Sportswear	Sandy Park	12,800	Exeter, Devon
Gloucester	David Humphreys	Willi Heinz	XBlades	Kingsholm Stadium	16,500	Gloucester, Gloucestershire
Harlequins	John Kingston	James Horwill	Adidas	Twickenham Stoop	14,800	Twickenham, Greater London
Leicester Tigers	Matt O'Connor	Tom Youngs	Kukri	Welford Road	25,849	Leicester, Leicestershire
London Irish	Declan Kidney	Franco van der Merwe	XBlades	Madejski Stadium	24,161	Reading, Berkshire
Newcastle Falcons	Dean Richards	Will Welch	ISC	Kingston Park	10,200	Newcastle, Tyne and Wear
Northampton Saints	Alan Gaffney	Dylan Hartley	Macron	Franklin's Gardens	15,500	Northampton, Northamptonshire
Sale Sharks	Steve Diamond	Will Addison	Samurai Sportswear	AJ Bell Stadium	12,000	Salford, Greater Manchester
Saracens	Mark McCall	Brad Barritt	BLK	Allianz Park	10,000	Hendon, Greater London
Wasps	Dai Young	Joe Launchbury	Under Armour	Ricoh Arena	32,609	Coventry, West Midlands
Worcester Warriors	Alan Solomons	Donncha O'Callaghan	Under Armour	Sixways Stadium	12,024	Worcester, Worcestershire

Pre-season

The 2017 edition of the Singha Premiership Rugby Sevens was held on 28 and 29 July at Franklin's Gardens. For the first time all twelve Premiership teams featured together in one venue over two days. Teams were split into four pools of three which played each other in a round-robin basis with the tournament splitting into Cup, Plate and Bowl finals on the second day.

Table

Regular season

Fixtures for the season were announced by Premiership Rugby on 7 July 2017. As is the norm, round 1 included the London Double Header at Twickenham.
After success in 2016 a match would once again take place in the United States with Newcastle Falcons hosting Saracens at the Talen Energy Stadium in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester, Pennsylvania.
All fixtures are subject to change.

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

Round 11

Round 12

Round 13

Round 14

Round 15

Round 16

Round 17

Round 18

Round 19

Round 20

Round 21

London Irish are relegated following Worcester Warriors win against Harlequins.
Round 22

Play-offs

As in previous seasons, the top four teams in the Premiership table, following the conclusion of the regular season, contested the play-off semi-finals in a 1st vs 4th and 2nd vs 3rd format, with the higher ranking team having home advantage. The two winners of the semi-finals then met in the Premiership Final at Twickenham on 26 May 2018.

Bracket

Semi-Finals

Final

Leading scorers

Note: Flags to the left of player names indicate national team as has been defined under World Rugby eligibility rules, or primary nationality for players who have not yet earned international senior caps. Players may hold one or more non-WR nationalities.

Most points

Last updated 4 June 2018

Source:

Rank	Player	Club	Points
1	Owen Farrell	Saracens	217
2	Gareth Steenson	Exeter	170
3	George Ford	Leicester	166
4	Marcus Smith	Harlequins	165
5	Rhys Priestland	Bath	149
6	AJ MacGinty	Sale	144
7	Jimmy Gopperth	Wasps	139
8	Billy Twelvetrees	Gloucester	124
9	Tommy Bell	London Irish	117
10	Faf de Klerk	Sale	97

Most tries