Bordeaux Begles will face Northampton Saints this weekend in the Champions Cup final in Cardiff. Both sides won their respective semi-finals to get through the show piece in the Principality Stadium.
It is a first Champions Cup final appearance for Bordeaux and for Northampton it is a first final since 2011. That day they lost to Leinster and that was 11 years on from a narrow 9-8 win over Munster in Twickenham.
Northampton will want to earn a second star, 25 years on from winning that first title under the captaincy of Pat Lam who is now Bristol director of rugby. It is a huge day in the history of both clubs particularly Bordeaux who will contest a first final under Yannick Bru in Europe.
The two best sides are in the final this year and no one can have any complaints on that front. It should be a good final. Let’s hope both sides go out and give it everything and it won’t turn into a cagey affair.
Bordeaux and Northampton both score tries for fun domestically so one hopes this will help us have a good open game on the big day in the Champions Cup. Rugby Union is in real need of a strong final given the off field issues concerning clubs in Wales and the trouble that World Rugby is having in the 7s form of the game.
It is a novel pairing seen as perennial finalists in recent times Leinster and Toulouse were knocked off the pedestal in recent weeks. Both sides are fully deserving of a place in the final as I mentioned and Bordeaux will know they will again need to be water tight in defence to get past Northampton who will have recently selected British and Irish Lions, Alex Mitchell, Fin Smith and Henry Pollock in the 23.
Bordeaux will be able to call upon guys like Joey Carbery, Maxime Lucu, Mathieu Jailbert and Pete Samu who is an Austrailan international who himself could face those three Lions later in the summer.
Bordeaux were heavily beaten in last season’s Top 14 Final by Toulouse and they have already re dressed that loss and will draw on those experiences in the latter stages of the final on Saturday.
This is shaping up to be a good final and given that Nika Amashukeli will have the whistle, this should provide it to be an open game as refereeing has again come in for criticism in the URC in recent weeks in particular.
It is France vs England in a European final and that should be enough to whet the appetites of supporters across the World. As I said Rugby Union has a habit of shooting itself in the foot from time to time but for once I hope rugby can do it’s talking on the field and the first finals of the season are on this weekend with Lyon facing Bath on Friday night in Cardiff.
This year’s final is kicking off at 2.45pm, an ideal time for fans in the Stadium and across Europe as well as the globe. I’ll pin my colours to the mast now and say Bordeaux Begles will win a first European crown on the 30th anniversary of the competition that was first won by Toulouse in Cardiff in the Arms Park….