{"id":55019,"date":"2026-06-21T08:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T08:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/northampton-saints-beat-exeter-in-prem-final-featuing-olivia-dean-and-other-talking-points\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T08:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T08:03:12","slug":"northampton-saints-beat-exeter-in-prem-final-featuing-olivia-dean-and-other-talking-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/northampton-saints-beat-exeter-in-prem-final-featuing-olivia-dean-and-other-talking-points\/","title":{"rendered":"Northampton Saints beat Exeter in Prem final featuing Olivia Dean and other talking points"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fin Smith was only 12 years old at the time, but he will remember the thunderous viral hit put in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=S3QDOWk1qIo\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">by Saints legend Courtney Lawes on France fly-half Jules Plisson back in 2015.<span class=\"visually-hidden ssrcss-i2z2ig-VisuallyHidden e16en2lz0\">, <!-- -->external<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On an adjacent patch of Twickenham pitch, Smith got a taste of something similar, being <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/premrugby\/status\/2068343127740440809\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">levelled by a flying Ethan Roots 25 minutes into the game.<span class=\"visually-hidden ssrcss-i2z2ig-VisuallyHidden e16en2lz0\">, <!-- -->external<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">No matter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Smith dusted himself down, got back to his feet and was undeterred in playing physical and flat to the line.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He weighs in at less than 14 stone, but his appetite for the physical stuff is Jonny Wilkinson-esque at times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Six minutes after Roots&#8217; shuddering shot, its victim was barging through Stephen Varney at short range for a try.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Overall, he carried 12 times and made 13 tackles, putting him third-highest in the Northampton ranks for both categories.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He made shrewd decisions, added momentum with ball in hand and was good off the tee, missing only a long-range penalty as his team wound down the clock, and a conversion from way out wide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The day before this final, fly-half rival George Ford had a mixed night for a mix-and-match England side in their warm-up against a France XV in Vannes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Smith is undoubtedly in pole position to be at 10 facing down the Springbok charge when England take on South Africa in their opening Test of the summer on 4 July.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/cdjkxmr3wrgo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fin Smith was only 12 years old at the time, but he will remember the thunderous viral hit put in by Saints legend Courtney Lawes on France fly-half Jules Plisson back in 2015., external On an adjacent patch of Twickenham pitch, Smith got a taste of something similar, being levelled by a flying Ethan Roots [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[3176,5833,3275,15658,1779,5742,6125,1183,12032,5743,7177],"class_list":["post-55019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news","tag-beat","tag-dean","tag-exeter","tag-featuing","tag-final","tag-northampton","tag-olivia","tag-points","tag-prem","tag-saints","tag-talking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55021,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55019\/revisions\/55021"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}