The Gallagher Premiership final is set: Northampton Saints will meet Exeter Chiefs at Twickenham on Saturday, 20 June, in a match that pits the season's most consistent side against its most stubborn.
Northampton earned their place the harder-seeming way on paper — finishing top of the regular-season table, losing only three of 18 matches — but still had to survive a high-scoring semi-final against Leicester Tigers, eventually winning 45-31 at Franklin's Gardens. Director of rugby Phil Dowson had set the tone before the game. "If you'd said at the start of pre-season that you're going to have this game against Leicester on Friday night to get to a final, we'd have bitten your hand off," he said. "We look ahead with excitement."
Fly-half Fin Smith, named man of the match, spoke afterwards of release as much as joy. "A lot of relief with how this season has gone. If we hadn't have got there, I think we would have felt like we had let ourselves down," he said. "You spend all season getting your processes right, and once we got going, I think we found our rhythm."
Exeter's route was pure theatre. The Chiefs sneaked into the play-offs on the final weekend of the regular season, then trailed Bath 26-10 at half-time in the semi-final at The Rec before storming back to win 27-26 — only the seventh away play-off victory in 46 Premiership knockout games. Director of rugby Rob Baxter insisted he had never doubted it, even at the break.
"I'm really confident we're going to win the game," Baxter recalled telling his players at half-time. "I know we are fit, I know we're resilient, and the harder they had to work, the more they were starting to flag and just taking their time getting back onside. I just thought 'this is going to be our time'. If we were ever going to exploit it, it was going to be now."
Baxter was careful to credit the side his team had just beaten. "Bath are a hell of a team, and the only thing that makes our performance worth anything is we have beaten a very good, well-coached team," he said.
The director of rugby has leaned into Exeter's underdog billing all season, and expects to do so again at Twickenham. "I think we've got a bit of confidence that turning up away from home as underdogs has brought out the best in us at times this season," he said. "We've got our work cut out for us, but we're in the final four of the Prem, so it was always going to be tough."
For Northampton, the final is a chance to add to the title they won in 2024, having slipped to eighth last season before this campaign's rebound. Dowson, who leans heavily on the club's academy, has repeatedly pointed to substance over style. "It's not necessarily important how attractive it is, it's how effective it is," he said.
Kick-off at Twickenham is at 3.00pm BST on Saturday, with the match live on TNT Sports and ITV4.
