Saints and Bordeaux prove Champions Cup magic remains
Whether or not you are a betting person you only needed to have a gander at the bookmakers’ predictions for the Investec Champions Cup semi-finals to get a good read on how each of the two matches last weekend should have gone.
The first semi-final of the weekend saw tournament favourites Leinster host English champions Northampton Saints. The East Midlands club have had a poor season by their standards and travelled across the Irish sea as underdogs. The bookies had Leinster as 21.5-point favourites.
On Sunday it was a clash of French titans as Bordeaux hosted Toulouse in the city known as the Pearl of the Atlantic. Despite being away from their usual fortress, defending champions Toulouse were favourites with the markets.
Against the Champions Cup odds
Northampton Saints strangled Dubliners Leinster in their own back yard to come out 34-27 winners and book a first Champions Cup final since 2011, when they lost to Leinster at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium.
And Bordeaux beat the odds to secure a 35-18 victory against Toulouse to reach their first ever Champions Cup final.
It is a healthy surprise for the competition, which was at risk of having the same small group of finalists and winners for yet another season.
But the inclusion of Bordeaux – who boast the likes of flying wingers Louis Bielle-Biarrey and Damian Penaud, as well as internationals Guido Petti, Adam Coleman and Jonny Gray – for the first time and a return for Northampton Saints, who won the tournament back in 2000 at Twickenham, has breathed fresh life into the premier club rugby tournament.
Neither semi-final was dominated by controversial refereeing calls and both matches saw silky backs plays and brutal forward running lines. They each had a little bit of everything.
And in two great arenas of European sport – Dublin’s Aviva Stadium and Bordeaux’s Matmut Atlantique – 40,000-plus packed in to watch each of the showpiece matches.
The proof was there
But despite the galactico power of both Leinster and Toulouse, history tells us these results were coming.
Leinster, in the URC era – which is now in its fourth season – have never progressed beyond the semi-finals – losing to the South African Bulls twice and Irish province Munster, while they’ve lost four Champions Cup finals – to Toulouse, La Rochelle and Saracens – since their fourth triumph in 2018.
Toulouse have featured in the semi-finals of the Champions Cup in each of the last seven seasons – including this 2024-25 campaign. Whenever they have been the designated home semi-finalist, in 2024 and 2021, they have won the tie and gone on to lift the European Cup in the final.
In the other five matches, where they have been the designated away side, defeats – thrice to Leinster and once apiece to Exeter Chiefs and Bordeaux – have plagued their team.
So the trends have been present, but that doesn’t take away from the mighty performances displayed by Bordeaux and Northampton Saints, who have been rewarded with a huge tie at the Principality Stadium later this month.
And for Northampton, there’ll be a yearning for the good old days, where European success was achieved in a tight 9-8 victory against Munster at Twickenham.
But for Bordeaux it really is a step into the unknown, into their first final. They have the pack and the backs but lack experience of major finals. Their only showpiece knockout game came in the Top 14 final last year, where they were thumped 59-3 by Toulouse in Marseille.
These two sides have each overcome huge obstacles to book their tickets to Cardiff, and both – with the success they achieved at the weekend – will believe that this is their time to etch their name onto the Investec Champions Cup.