On Saturday, two giants of English rugby will go head-to-head at the Allianz Stadium to determine who will be crowned Champions of England. Bath will go into the game as favourites having lead throughout the season but Leicester are not a team to be written off. After all, when the Tigers won their last Premiership title in 2022, they went into the game as underdogs behind Saracens. That game ended with a last-minute drop goal by Freddie Burns clinching victory so we can only hope for as dramatic an ending this time around.
Bath are the favourites having improved year-on-year since Van Graan took over and this was a widely predicted situation as soon as the final whistle went in last year's final. Bath went from rock bottom a few years ago to a Premiership final last season and are even better now. What will be scaring the other teams in English rugby will be the fact that Bath might actually be even better next year. Henry Arundell, Santiago Carreras and Chris Harris have all signed on for the 2025/26 campaign so things are looking good going forward. But, in the mean time, they are still a remarkable group right now. Last year's final will have done them a lot of good and given some crucial experience to players who had not been in a game that big before. They have since won the Premiership Cup and the Challenge Cup this season and so will be very prepared for Saturday's final from a psychological perspective; they'll need to be given the amount of experience they will be up against. With that in mind, let's take a look at the team chosen by Van Graan to bring home a long-awaited first league title in the professional era.
1.Beno Obano 2.Tom Dunn 3.Thomas Du Toit 4.Quinn Roux 5.Charlie Ewels
6.Ted Hill 7.Guy Pepper 8.Miles Reid 9.Ben Spencer(C) 10.Finn Russell
11.Will Muir 12.Cameron Redpath 13.Max Ojomoh 14.Joe Cokanasiga 15.Tom De Glanville
16.Nial Annett 17.Francois Van Wyk 18.Will Stuart 19.Ross Molony
20.Josh Bayliss 21.Tom Carr-Smith 22.Ciaran Donoghue 23.Alfie Barbeary
Sam Underhill is still unavailable due to suspension, and Lawrence is out due to injury, but this is about as strong as any Bath team could be. Ciaran Donoghue has clearly earned the trust of Van Graan to be one of only two backs on the bench for this game. Stuart, Bayliss and Barbeary coming on from the bench will be deadly in the final quarter of the game after Du Toit and that back row cause havoc for the first hour. This team is set up well for the ultimate success in English club rugby this weekend.
Leicester come into this game as the underdogs but that won't phase them in the slightest. This squad is a perfect mix of top-level experience, power and pace - it is perfectly built for knockout rugby. They have had a very different journey than Bath this season. The tigers finished just one place behind Bath but were much further behind the league-leaders than their position would suggest. They have had multiple bumps in the road this season - most notably an eighty-point loss to Toulouse in the Champions Cup which led to a coach being fired and a massive turn around. After their European defeat, Leicester used it as a turning point to get their season truly up-and-running. The Tigers went on a good run of form before beating Sale in a tense playoff game to earn their place at the Allianz Stadium this weekend. This Tigers squad is full of players who know exactly what it takes to win this game so they'll be very confident despite the gap between themselves and their final opponents this season.
1.Nicky Smith 2.Julian Montoya 3.Joe Heyes 4.Cameron Henderson 5.Ollie Chessum
6.Hanro Liebenberg 7.Tommy Reffell 8.Olly Cracknell 9.Jack Van Poortvliet 10.Handre Pollard
11.Ollie Hassell-Collins 12.Joseph Woodward 13.Solomone Kata 14.Adam Radwan 15.Freddie Steward
16.Charlie Clare 17.James Cronin 18.Dan Cole 19.Matt Rogerson
20.Emeka Ilione 21.Ben Youngs 22.Ben Volavola 23.Izaia Perese
Michael Cheika is a serial winner as a coach and is exactly the man to lead a side to playoff success. His job will be made easier by the likes of Julian Montoya, Dan Cole and Ben Youngs who are all playing their final game for Leicester. Montoya, the captain, will be crucial when it comes to setting the tone for the Tigers and giving the backs a platform from the line-out. Youngs and Coles will bring massive amounts of experience from the bench for the crucial stages which will be needed to give Leicester a chance to counter Bath's bench. Cameron Henderson has stepped up massively in the place of George Martin, becoming a big threat at opposition line-outs. Van Poortvliet and Pollard a good duo who play a very different brand of rugby to their opposite numbers so the clash of styles will be something to watch. The aerial battle will also be an area to watch - Steward and Hassell-Collins dominated the skies against Sale and will look to do so again but are up against two, huge wingers in Muir and Cokanasiga.
Prediction
Leicester will front up well, and push Bath to the wire, but Bath's power will simply be too much in the end when paired with the brilliance of Finn Russell. I expect Bath to win a very tense battle.
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