With the Lions tour due to start on 3rd July, the weekend of 21/22 November is the latest point at which next season can start in order to finish on time without midweek games, and that's after the Premiership Rugby Cup is axed.
Re. Lima, I've been a bit hacked off with his comments this week. Yes losing 25% of your salary isn't great, but he is still on an obscene amount of money compared to most people, and quite how much value for money we got from him before is debatable. Yes playing 7 matches in a month will be tough, but is it any tougher than what nurses have faced for a longer period of time for less than 1/12th of what he's still earning?