{"id":16517,"date":"2025-07-01T15:09:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T15:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/investec-champions-cup-draw-bordeaux-begles-and-northampton-saints-in-same-pool\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T15:09:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T15:09:18","slug":"investec-champions-cup-draw-bordeaux-begles-and-northampton-saints-in-same-pool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/investec-champions-cup-draw-bordeaux-begles-and-northampton-saints-in-same-pool\/","title":{"rendered":"Investec Champions Cup draw: Bordeaux-Begles and Northampton Saints in same pool"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Holders Bordeaux-Begles and last season’s finalists Northampton Saints have been drawn in Pool 4 for the 2025-26 Investec Champions Cup.<\/b><\/p>\n

In May, Bordeaux defeated Saints 28-20 in Cardiff<\/a> to lift their first Champions Cup title.<\/p>\n

Premiership semi-finalists Bristol Bears, Scarlets, Top 14 side Pau and United Rugby Championship (URC) runners-up Bulls are also in Pool 4.<\/p>\n

Three-time winners Saracens are in Pool 1 alongside record six-time champions Toulouse.<\/p>\n

They are joined by Glasgow Warriors, Sale Sharks, Clermont Auvergne and South African side Sharks.<\/p>\n

Premiership champions Bath, who won last year’s Challenge Cup,<\/a> are in Pool 2 with Munster, Gloucester, Edinburgh, Castres and three-time winners Toulon.<\/p>\n

In Pool 3, Leinster, who lost to Northampton in last year’s semi final,<\/a> again are drawn in the same pool as Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle, who defeated the Irish province in back-to-back finals in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n

Leo Cullen’s team squeezed past the Top 14 side 16-14 in last year’s pool stage.<\/a><\/p>\n

Leicester Tigers and Harlequins are also in Pool 3, with Bayonne and South African side Stormers.<\/p>\n

Each team will play four different opponents in the pool stage, but not teams from their own league, with fixtures still to be announced.<\/p>\n

In the Challenge Cup, Ulster, who finished 14th in last season’s URC have been drawn in the same pool as Parisian rivals Racing 92 and Stade Francais in Pool 3.<\/p>\n

Ospreys and Connacht have a kinder draw in Pool 1, which contains Georgian side Black Lion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Holders Bordeaux-Begles and last season’s finalists Northampton Saints have been drawn in Pool 4 for the 2025-26 Investec Champions Cup. In May, Bordeaux defeated Saints 28-20 in Cardiff to lift their first Champions Cup title. Premiership semi-finalists Bristol Bears, Scarlets, Top 14 side Pau and United Rugby Championship (URC) runners-up Bulls are also in Pool […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16519,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16517\/revisions\/16519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}