Leicester Tigers
After last season’s utterly shocking multi-coloured tiger-stripe abomination almost anything would have been a step up this year. Pleasantly, however, Canterbury’ Leicester offering this year is one of the smartest kits we’ve seen this year, and it’s refreshingly different too. Welford Road purists might balk at the minimal amount of white and red, but there’s no getting away from the fact that the double stripe on the predominantly green shirt is eye-catching, modern, but also classy and tasteful.
SHIT/GOOD RATING: GOOD
Bath
After a few years of Puma shitting out some truly awful sub-Stade Francais ‘quirky’ kits, Bath have made an interesting decision. The fans will no doubt be delighted to see the Westcountry club back in its traditional blue, black and white hoops, but they might notice that there’s no manufacturer’s logo on the kit. Indeed, that’s entirely intentional – rather than signing a deal with a kit manufacturer, Bath have opted to use the TRI Distribution company to get their designs manufactured by a sportswear manufacturing factory in India.
The RFU and WRU use this TRI produce their non-sponsor-branded teamwear, and TRI also has close ties to the Burdda company – rumours abounded that Burrda would supply Bath this year, so it will be interesting to see if these shirts are just Burrda garments with no branding.
SHIT/GOOD RATING: GOOD
Worcester Warriors
It must be hard being Worcester – they’re the sort of team that’s easy to forget about. They don’t have a storied history like Bath or a famously rabid fanbase like Gloucester, and they don’t make headlines like Exeter. No, in the battle of Westcountry rugby clubs, even Bristol have have got more publicity than them recently. It’s understandable then, that Worcester, being desperate to be noticed, would approve a kit as ugly as this. Kooga don’t have the best track record when it comes to tasteful kits, but this is especially risible – there’s nothing wrong with the colour scheme, but the messy yellow and white shoulder thing just looks terrible – back to the drawing board!
SHIT/GOOD RATING: SHIT
Gloucester
The Cherry & Whites have one of the most recognisable shirt designs in English rugby. It’s a classic design that’s a key facet of the club’s identity. It’s a shame then, that the designers at Kooga appear to have tried their utmost to get rid of the classic red and white hoops – there’s far too much white in the shirt, and the huge white side-panels only make this worse. It’s not bad per-se, but it’s a bit all over the place, and isn’t even an improvement over last year‘s pretty average shirt.
SHIT/GOOD RATING: SHIT
Exeter Chiefs
We’re just not going to say anything about that Euro kit – you can draw the obvious pub-team on tour comparison yourself, can’t you? So the new Chiefs home kit then? Well… Samurai kits always look a bit cookie-cutter to us – like they’ve been ordered from a catalogue rather than produced for a pro team. This one’s okay we guess – it’s pretty subtle and tasteful, but let’s be honest, it’s achingly boring. Meh.
SHIT/GOOD RATING: GOOD. ISH.
So there we have it, the first crop of 2013/14 shirts for the Aviva Premiership – check back to read our views on the other jerseys as they’re unveiled.
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