Northampton Saints a Champions Cup tonic for English Premiership
With Northampton Saints in the Investec Champions Cup final, the English Premiership has a representative for the first time since 2020.
At the end of January former Investec Champions Cup winners Exeter Chiefs were dumped out of the competition without a win to their name, Premiership leaders and title favourites Bath were dumped out with one win to their name, and Bristol managed to score just 80 points in their four matches as they exited at the earliest possible stage.
For the English Premiership sides it had not gone well and, alongside three of the South African franchises and two Top 14 teams, European glory was now a pipe dream.
But the Premiership only has 10 teams, with eight qualifying for the Champions Cup, and so lost nearly 40 per cent of its representatives, whereas the two French sides are part of a 14-team top flight and the three South African teams members of the 16-team United Rugby Championship.
Fast forward to May, however, and there are just two teams left. One of them, expectedly, is French, albeit few thought Bordeaux would be able to muscle and flair their way past the mighty Toulouse, and the other – against the odds – is English.
Champions Cup offers hope
Northampton Saints are English champions but their title defence has been shockingly bad. The Champions Cup, then, has proved a competition worth targeting for the East Midlands club.
Last season they were edged out by Leinster at Croke Park but in this year’s repeat fixture – at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium – Northampton Saints proved the more complete team and dumped out the tournament favourites in their own back yard.
But this is not just a tonic for the fans at Franklin’s Gardens who have had to sit through woeful performances in defeat to the likes of Leicester and Gloucester, it is a tonic for the English Premiership, who will have a Champions Cup finalist for the first time since Saracens and Exeter Chiefs won back-to-back titles for the English game in 2019 and 2020.
Been there, done that
And why could Northampton Saints convert their first final since 2011 into a first title since 2000 in this prestigious competition? Because their opponents Bordeaux have never been to and won a major final.
Northampton are graced with stalwart players such as England fly-half Fin Smith and wingers Tommy Freeman and Ollie Sleightholme, but have the likes of irritant-in-chief Henry Pollock coming through the ranks and driving standards.
Bordeaux have the “joue joue” stars associated with the best of the game across the English Channel but Northampton have a grit and winning experience that could give them the edge.
If you had told Northampton fans, coaches and players that they would be in this year’s Champions Cup final, they’d have laughed in your face – despite what those players would have you believe between now and this month’s showpiece match – but their presence in the final in Cardiff on 24 May is monumentally good news for the Premiership, which has been starved of appearances in European finals for far too long.