Discontent with RFU’s Bill Sweeney still simmering below the Premiership with no sign of a resolution to game’s murky politics

It is about six miles from Twickenham to Ealing as the ball flies, but the gap felt a good stretch longer than that on Saturday. Two days after the Rugby Football Union’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, faced down a vote of no confidence at a special general meeting, two of the rebel clubs involved in the attempt to get rid of him, Nottingham and Ealing Trailfinders, were playing each other in the Championship.

It is an odd spot for the hotbed of a rebellion, tucked away in the far corner of the west London suburbs, but there was an unmistakable burble of gossip in the clubhouse, where the members were catching each other up on all the goings-on at Twickenham.