Northampton Saints clash with Union Bordeaux Begles European in the Champions Cup Final in Cardiff on Saturday and the French side are the bookmakers favourites to come out on top.
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Northampton Saints v Union Bordeaux-Begles, Saturday 24th May, Cardiff, KO 15:45 (South African time)
Referee: Nike Amashukeli (Georgia)
Assistant Referees: Andrew Brace (Ireland), Andrea Piardi (Italy)
TMO: Marius Jonker (South Africa)
Weather Forecast – Cardiff (we understand the roof will be closed for the final).
Northampton Saints:
The Saints turned the original outright favourites Leinster over in the semi finals, coming away from Dublin with a stunning 37-34 victory. Their earlier play offs
delivered comfortable home wins over Castres (51-16) in the quarters and Clermont (46-24) in the Ro16.
Earlier the Saints topped their pool with 3 wins and 1 defeat to finish ahead of Castres, Munster and Saracens with Bulls fifth and Stade Francais sixth. They began with a 38-8 home win over Castres and then beat the Bulls 30-21 at Loftus. Their only defeat came away to Stade Francais (45-35) and they went into the play offs on the back of a 34-32 home win over Munster.
In the Gallagher Premiership the Saints are in 8th position with a record of 8 wins and 9 defeats with one round of the regular season remaining.
Union Bordeaux-Begles:
UBB made home advantage count in the play offs and they sealed a place in the final with a 35-18 win over Stade Toulouse. In the quarters they saw off Munster 47-29 and in the Round of 16 they got the better of Ulster 43-31.
Bordeaux topped their pool with a 100% record which saw them finish 1 point ahead of Stade Toulouse and 9 better off than Leicester Tigers. Ulster edged out the Hollywoodbets Sharks for fourth place and Exeter Chiefs were the also rans. They started with a 42-28 home win over Leicester Tigers and followed up with victories away to Ulster (40-19) and Exeter Chiefs (69-17). They hosted the Sharks in their final pool game where they dished out a 66-12 hiding to the Durban side.
In the Top 14 Union Bordeaux Begles are in second spot with a record of 16 wins and 8 defeats and they are 12 points behind Toulouse with 2 rounds of the regular season to go before the play offs
Team News
Northampton Saints: 15 George Furbank, 14 Tommy Freeman, 13 Fraser Dingwall (c), 12 Rory Hutchinson, 11 James Ramm, 10 Fin Smith, 9 Alex Mitchell, 8 Henry Pollock, 7 Josh Kemeny, 6 Alex Coles, 5 Tom Lockett, 4 Temo Mayanavanua, 3 Trevor Davison, 2 Curtis Langdon, 1 Emmanuel Iyogun
Replacements: 16 Craig Wright, 17 Tarek Haffar, 18 Elliot Millar Mills, 19 Ed Prowse, 20 Angus Scott-Young, 21 Tom James, 22 Tom Litchfield, 23 Ollie Sleightholme
Bordeaux: 15 Romain Buros, 14 Damian Penaud, 13 Nicolas Depoortère, 12 Yoram Moefana, 11 Louis Bielle-Biarrey, 10 Matthieu Jalibert, 9 Maxime Lucu (c), 8 Peter Samu, 7 Guido Petti, 6 Mahamadou Diaby, 5 Cyril Cazeaux, 4 Adam Coleman, 3 Sipili Falatea, 2 Maxime Lamothe, 1 Jefferson Poirot
Replacements: 16 Connor Sa, 17 Ugo Boniface, 18 Ben Tameifuna, 19 Pierre Bochaton, 20 Bastien Vergnes, 21 Marko Gazzotti, 22 Arthur Retiere, 23 Rohan Janse van Rensburg
The Betting
Updated 22 May 23h22
Northampton Saints +8.5 points at 9/10
Bordeaux -7.5 points at 9/10
Note, odds quoted are available at the time of writing but are subject to change.
Betting Angle
Posted 21 May 16h06
There has been some money for Bordeaux with the line moving from -6.5 to -7.5 at Betxchange.
Our selections will be posted once we have team news and points lines - given this is under roof the bookies have no reason to delay.
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Posted 22 May 23h36
Money has come for Bordeaux who are now -8.5 from -6.5.
I think Bordeaux can beat the handiap but for my money the points line deserves attention.
This game is played under the roof so conditions should be good although the surface would have had the EPCR final on it the night before.
Both teams played out high scoring playoff matches but finals are different gravy and I think unders is the play here.
In the last 12 finals only 1 would have gone over the current points line and that was a 58 pointer so only scraped over.
Yes there will be plenty of exciting rugby but I am expecting desperate defense and possibly from "defending the lead" from the team that goes clear.
BET: 5 units under 56.5 points at 0.88/1 at Betxchange
Updated 23 May 23h25
The markets have been stable with Bordeuax still around the -7.5 and -8.5 mark.
Total points has stayed at 56.5 but you can now get 0.94 on my unders fancy so the majority of punters expect points.
Note, odds quoted are available at the time of writing but are subject to change.
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