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Scintillating Champions Cup final in store as South Africa looks on from the sidelines

Tommy Freeman of Northampton Saints dives over to score his third try during the Investec Champions Cup semi-final match between Leinster Rugby and Northampton Saints at the Aviva Stadium on May 03, 2025 in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

By Craig Ray

23 May 2025

The 2025 Champions Cup final takes place this weekend with South Africa’s best teams and fans left as interested bystanders.

It’s obvious from the results earlier in the year and over the course of the two previous seasons that South African clubs, and by extension, fans, haven’t paid close attention to the Investec Champions Cup.

But with Super Rugby diluted due to South Africa’s exit, European rugby’s answer to soccer’s Champions League is arguably the pinnacle of the global club game.

This weekend surprise package Northampton Saints take on French high-flyers Bordeaux Begles for the right to be called European champions in Saturday’s final at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.

South Africa’s interest in the competition petered out at the group stage with neither the Bulls, Sharks nor Stormers progressing to the knockout stages.

Henry Pollock of Northampton Saints during their match against Saracens at Franklin's Gardens on 17 May 2025 in Northampton, England. (Photo: David Rogers / Getty Images)

With all South African clubs failing to make the play-offs in the competition, it did raise some red flags about the multi-pronged front on which local teams have to compete.

After almost four full seasons as part of the northern hemisphere club structures, which necessitated never-ending 12-month campaigns, South African clubs failed to make an impression against the best of Europe.

When it comes to the Champions Cup, no South African team has progressed beyond the quarterfinals in three seasons.

In the inaugural season of South African participation, the Sharks and the Stormers each won three of their four pool matches while the Bulls won two from four. That was a respectable eight wins from 12 pool matches.

Read more: SA teams need to take Champions Cup more seriously after another season of abject failure

The Sharks and the Stormers both won their round-of-16 matches before coming unstuck in the quarterfinals, while the Bulls were eliminated in the last 16.

In 2023/24 only the Bulls and Stormers qualified for the Champions Cup out of the previous season’s United Rugby Championship (URC) standings.

Juarno Augustus of Northampton Saints. (Photo: David Rogers/Getty Images)

The Stormers lost at home to La Rochelle in the round of 16 and the Bulls were thumped in the quarterfinals by Harlequins.

This season — the 2024/25 campaign — saw the Bulls, Sharks and Stormers win three pool games out of 12 between them. None made the playoffs.

Despite this, European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) bosses remained bullish over the participation of South African teams in the Champions and the secondary Challenge Cups.

“I would love for the South African clubs to go really deep into the Champions Cup, but it’s hard,” EPCR chairman Dominic McKay told Daily Maverick in an interview in March.

“It’s a very hard competition because it’s the world’s best players, the best clubs, all coming together in eight weekends. It’s a tough competition to go deep into, but we’re very pleased with the way the South African teams are working so well and integrating and hosting.”

The best

The Champions Cup semifinals earlier this month were magnificent with the underdogs in each match winning.

Northampton Saints’ stunning 37-34 dismantling of Leinster in Dublin was as heroic as it was unexpected. The English side played the game of their season, perhaps the best they’ve produced in years, to topple a Leinster team that looked unbeatable.

Northampton’s bold approach, attacking the gain line with short, sharp passes, upset Leinster’s formidable blitz defence and allowed the Saints to construct some magnificent tries.

It might also have given teams in the United Rugby Championship the blueprint on how, at the very least, to ask different questions of Jacques Nienaber’s usually miserly defence.

For all that, Leinster still stayed in the game and had a chance to win it late on, when some questionable leadership decisions blew their chance. They had a late, kickable penalty that could have drawn the game and sent it to extra time.

Instead, Leinster went for the win with a tap-and-go move, only to lose the ball in contact close to the Saints’ line. Game over and another failure for Leinster in the competition they prize above all else.

There will be a lot of soul searching at Leinster’s training base as they pick over another failure in the biggest tournament of them all.

From a South African perspective, there was a little good news as RG Snyman was named Leinster’s player of the year. The announcement, coming about 48 hours after their Champions Cup exit, felt like a booby prize in some ways though.

In the second semi-final, Bordeaux toppled the mighty Toulouse 35-18 in another pulsating match.

Toulouse were without the injured Antoine Dupont and Thomas Ramos — two players any team would battle to cover — which aided their downfall.

But Bordeaux were irrepressible, playing with French flair and dollops of panache as they carved holes through the Toulouse defence.

We are living in an age where the game is returning to smaller outside backs, and in Louis Bielle-Biarrey, France and the Begles have a wing to match Cheslin Kolbe and Kurt-Lee Arendse.

Bielle-Biarrey is thin and wiry but explosive, slipperier than white anchovies in olive oil, and intelligent. He is a marvel to watch and his try, constructed from the restart to begin the second half, combined all those traits in one sweeping 85-metre move that sucked the life out of Toulouse.

Intriguing final

It has set up the most intriguing final in years after years of La Rochelle, Clermont, Toulouse, Saracens and Leinster dominance of the finals.

The Saints won the 2000 title and were last in the final in 2011, when they lost to Leinster.

For Bordeaux, it’s their debut in the showpiece contest.

Northampton’s defence of their English Premiership title has not gone well this year (they currently languish in eighth) but they have been excellent in Europe.

Former Junior Bok loose forward Juarno Augustus has been one of the standout performers for the Saints, while explosive 20-year-old flank Henry Pollock has been the star of the tournament.

His long-range try in the semifinal will go down in folklore, and his performance in this competition was enough to earn him a call-up to the British & Irish Lions squad to tour Australia.

Northampton have a silky backline featuring a host of England, and now, Lions, players.

Flyhalf Fin Smith is a slippery playmaker and wing Tommy Freeman, who scored a hat-trick in the semifinal, is a proven finisher. Freeman scored in every Six Nations match earlier this year.

Scrumhalf Alex Mitchell is the general, who cleverly dictates style and direction with a varied kicking and passing game.

Bordeaux though, have their own gamebreakers — none more so than Bielle-Biarrey and fellow French Test wing Damian Penaud.

Bielle-Biarrey scored a record eight tries in the Six Nations, and he has carried that form into the Champions Cup. DM

The Champions Cup final kick-off is at 3.45pm on 24 May. TV — Supersport.

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