English teams in Champions Cup showed Premiership still has aura

For the fourth consecutive Investec Champions Cup final there will be no Premiership side, and for the fourth consecutive final there will instead be representatives from both the multi-national United Rugby Championship and the French Top 14.

But is that reason to be gloomy about the English top flight? Not at all. Because in the two losing semi-finalists Northampton Saints and Harlequins, England put on a show it can be proud of.

Premiership defeated in Dublin

Granted, Northampton will be disappointed with their opening 30 minutes against Leinster in Dublin, but Phil Dowson’s men came back into it and were on top in the last quarter.

Their 20-17 loss was testament to the tenacity of the away side against what many describe as a proxy Irish international side.

Leinster have firepower across the park and the depth many clubs outside of the Irish funding model could only dream of.

They’re allowed to nurture talent and rest players in a way English and French teams cannot, so to be within a score of them in their own back yard is always a respectable result.

But there was more to Nothampton’s game than just the result. It was the end of a European era with the club for a number of players, notably Courtney Lawes.

The British and Irish Lion has been one of the form back-rows this season and will swap the East Midlands for the cosy wage bills of the French second division next season.

It means he was denied the European glory he’d been craving but Northampton are flying high domestically and are among the favourites to lift the Premiership title next month.

…and in France

In the other semi-final the hope, from the neutral perspective, was for points. And Toulouse and Harlequins delivered.

Le Stadium in the south of France was blessed with 64 points, 38 of them from the hosts, as Toulouse came out as victors.

But this match was one of high quality action and free-flowing rugby, where forwards on both sides such as Peato Mauvaka and Chandler Cunningham-South were able to show off their skills at the best of their abilities, while the backs – including Cadan Murley, Paul Costes and of course Antoine Dupont – could dazzle for 80 minutes.

Harlequins fell short, as expected, but their fight in Toulouse having beaten Bordeaux in their back garden just weeks earlier was a great story of just going for it.

Earlier last week the Harlequins coaches said they’d need to score 40 points to have a chance at winning, and they were spot on.

Fine margins were the difference between the final we got – Leinster taking on Toulouse – and the all-English final we were so close to having – Northampton and Harlequins battling it out in London.

But both sides can be proud of what they have achieved against European giants this term, and the rest of the Premiership can go onto the rest of the domestic season knowing the other major leagues in the Champions Cup still have respect for a competition that many thought had regressed.