Northampton Saints take on Bath Rugby for the title at Twickenham
The 2024 Gallagher Premiership Rugby final sees Northampton Saints take on Bath Rugby at Twickenham on Saturday 8 June.
The two sides who finished 1st and 2nd in the regular season will meet in the final for the first time. The last time Saints saw Premiership success was a decade ago in 2014 when they beat Saracens after extra time. As for Bath, this could be their first title since 1996, a period that pre-dated the final showdown. It will also see a fifth different Premiership champion crowned in five years.
Related: How to watch and live stream the Gallagher Premiership Rugby Final this weekend
The sell-out match will be a hotly anticipated affair with both sides capable of mesmeric attacking rugby and little to split them.
So ahead of the game, here are five storylines that Rugby World thinks you should be aware of for this weekend:
1.Fin vs Finn
Northampton Saints’ Fin Smith kicks at goal (Getty Images)
The battle of the fly-halves is going to be class.
On one side, Fin Smith. After replacing experienced head Dan Biggar last season, the 22-year-old has looked to the manner born in the ten jersey, providing a level of game management to Saints that is usually reserved for 50+ Test cap pros.
Read more: Owen Farrell praises Fin Smith’s progress
On the other side, Finn Russell. The mercurial Scot who joined a tepid Bath side at the start of the year and has helped transform them into a potentially-Championship winning side. Win Bath’s first title in 28 years this weekend and he has to be in the conversation for best Premiership signing in history.
Both will be hoping for quick, clean ball to work with on Saturday and you cannot help but think whoever has that will come off best. However, do not discount Russell to create something from nothing, he has a habit of doing that. Or get picked off with an intercept.
2. Inside No.9
Ben Spencer powers forward during Bath’s defeat of Harlequins at the Recreation Ground (Getty Images)
Just as mouthwatering as the fly-half battle is the scrum-half battle. Two England internationals in Northampton’s Alex Mitchell and Bath’s Ben Spencer.
For somebody who looks absolutely exhausted from minute one, Mitchell sure covers some ground. An absolute livewire from the base, his ability to manipulate defenders with his footwork and hand placement makes life easier for all around him, so often creating line breaks. No wonder he has made the England nine shirt his own.
Ben Spencer is an attacking scrum half but in a different way. He has the best box-kick in England which provides him with a level of control that over nines envy. However, when it’s on, Spencer is able to capitalise as well as anyone, especially knowing that Russell is by his side at stand-off.
Again, like the fly-half showdown, you get the sense that whoever gets the upper hand here will go a long way to contributing to victory.
3. Courtney Lawes’ farewell tour
Courtney Lawes playing for Northampton Saints (Getty Images)
TTFN Courtney, you have been some player.
After 17 years pro at Northampton, Courtney Lawes is leaving for his own sunset retirement tour down in France’s Pro D2 at Brive having stepped away from international duty after last year’s World Cup. With this, you would think the bone-rattling flanker would be winding down.
Yet what’s scary is that at 35, Lawes is playing the best rugby of his life. So much so, I would not be surprised to see him on next year’s British and Irish Lions Tour.
One of those players who genuinely strikes fear into the opposition, it has been a pleasure to see Lawes hunt down Premiership fly-halves for the best part of two decades and, in more recent years, run over them too.
This Saturday’s final will be his 283rd and last game in a Saints jersey meaning a fitting end would be Lawes lifting the Premiership title for a second occasion alongside fellow leavers Lewis Ludlam and Alex Waller.
4. Bath are back?
Gladiator host Jeremy Guscott (centre) posed with ‘Gladiators’ Gold, Khan, Rocket, Siren and Fox, circa 1997. (Photo by Mike Lawn/TV Times via Getty Images)
So long is the barren spell for Premiership titles for the Somerset side that Jeremy Guscott won the league with Bath, became co-host of Saturday night television show Gladiators, retired, Gladiators was cancelled, then revived on Sky, then cancelled again after one year, and then revived again on the BBC with former England Sevens international Jodie Ounsley as Fury who was not even born the last time Bath won the title.
That is a fairly long way of telling you just how big this weekend is for Bath Rugby. They are a stalwart of the game in England and one of only three sides to have player every season in the top flight since the league’s inception in 1987 – alongside Leicester Tigers and Gloucester.
Winning this weekend would mean a lot to the club and the city, especially when you consider this is also their first final in a decade.
5. Changing of the guard
Defending champs: Saracens celebrate last season’s Premiership victory (Getty Images)
The days of back-to-back Saracens Premiership wins are a distant memory. This year will see a fifth champion in as many years with two sides who have been absent from finals for a decade. Despite the lurking elephant in the room of three sides going bust in the past two years (Worcester, Wasps and London Irish), it feels as if the Premiership is as open as ever with some of the best rugby we have ever seen.
The final day of the regular season saw five teams in contention for play-off rugby with only 11 points separating first from seventh place. Both semi-finals could have gone either way and there is even less to split the two finalists this weekend.
It leaves us in a position that could genuinely see eight of the 10 teams in the Premiership fancying themselves for a tilt at the title next season, an exciting prospect for English rugby.
Which way will the Gallagher Premiership Rugby final go? Let us know on social media or email rugbyworldletters@futurenet.com
Download the digital edition of Rugby World straight to your tablet or subscribe to the print edition to get the magazine delivered to your door.