Northampton stumble at final hurdle

“I don’t know about any of that in terms of fate,” said Phil Dowson, Northampton’s director of rugby ahead of the club’s return to Cardiff to play in a Champions Cup final, just as they did 14 years ago when Dowson was a player. There was ultimately no healing yesterday in the Welsh capital. Defeated 28-20 by Bordeaux-Bègles, the fifth French winners in a row of this competition, Dowson’s players now have to find a ways to process the same pain their coach experienced in 2011.

The stars did not align. A try being ruled out for their sensation Henry Pollock, George Furbank forced off after a dreadful blow to the head in the opening minutes; they were ominous signs. Damian Penaud and Louis Bielle-Biarrey, two of the game’s great wings, could only partially be contained. Dowson, coaching hat on, had been right not to daydream about the wider significance of it all.

For the rest of us, however? The synchronicity of it all feels fascinating. Partly because Northampton did not just lose that final back in 2011 (apologies, Saints fans, for scratching at an old wound here), they suffered one of the most catastrophic collapses in cup final history. Leading 22-6 at half-time against Leinster they had hold of the trophy, until Johnny Sexton went turbo and Northampton’s hand was agonisingly ripped off the silverware finger by finger.

Dowson was Northampton’s starting openside flanker that day. Eager to put the pain of it all behind him, feeling “fed up and gutted”, in the following weeks he took a flight to the United States to see friends.

“I remember thinking, I will just get to the US and get away from rugby,” says Dowson of being at the airport. “And the guy in front of me in the queue turned around and went ‘Oh, what happened in Cardiff?’ I thought, ‘Please don’t sit next to me, please don’t sit next to me’.” Fortunately for Dowson, his inquisitive fellow traveller was seated elsewhere.

Coaches and players in these big moments cannot afford to be distracted and sentimental but, if you are Dowson, how could you not go through the pre-match motions in Cardiff yesterday– settling into the changing room, monitoring the warm-ups on the field, taking in the hundreds of Saints supporters in the stands – and not find it all surreal?

There are several examples of teams losing major finals in their own stadiums – England in the men’s Euros back in 2021, Bayern Munich at home to Chelsea in the Champions League in 2012. By having to play regularly at the same venue every other week, those demons are gradually exorcised. But how often does a club get the opportunity to return to the same neutral venue several years later, for a shot at redemption?

This has been the season where trophy droughts went to die. Tottenham Hotspur’s came to an end after 17 years on Wednesday night in Bilbao, also their first European trophy since 1984. Bologna waited 51 years for any trophy, Newcastle United 70 for their first domestic cup. Crystal Palace? Just 119 years.

Northampton, the defending Premiership champions following their final win over Bath last year, have not had to wait that long. This young group knows that feeling of euphoria very well, and while they will not get the chance to defend their league title, having missed out on the play-offs, what they have done in Europe is astonishing. The loss of experienced heads – Courtney Lawes, Lewis Ludlam, Alex Waller – should have set Northampton back a couple of seasons. Instead, the young guns have played beyond their years and without fear; Tommy Freeman, Fin Smith, Fraser Dingwall, Curtis Langdon. Oh, and they have Pollock, developing at a frightening pace into a world-leading talent. Finally, this year marks 25 since Northampton’s first and only Champions Cup title in 2000, a 9-8 win over Ulster at Twickenham.

When Dowson reflected back on that painful day in Cardiff he felt proud of the European campaign as a whole, “the enjoyment” that he felt that season, staying unbeaten until the final before “we just lost a half of rugby really badly”.

In the end that heartbreak proved to be a springboard. Northampton completed a double in 2014, winning the Challenge Cup in Cardiff – not back in the Principality Stadium, but outside at the smaller Arms Park – and then the Premiership title at Twickenham. That suffering against Leinster three years earlier “made it all the more sweeter”, said Dowson.

Northampton should feel just as proud about this campaign, despite this defeat by Bordeaux-Bègles. This side are too young, too talented not to come again. Alex Coles was immense, while injuries hampered and disrupted Saints from the start. You can never really silence Penaud, who scored twice. And in Matthieu Jalibert, Bordeaux have an astonishing talent running the show at fly-half who rose to the occasion, playing alongside a magnificent general in Maxime Lucu. Containing a side with that much power and panache is exhausting.

Fate this time did not smile on Northampton. They will undoubtedly come again.

Photograph by Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty Images