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30th April 2025
05:20pm BST
For the second year in a row, Leinster will host Northampton in a Champions Cup semi-final.
If Leinster prevail, it will be a fourth final in a row for the Dublin-based side, and they will be hoping it is fourth-time lucky, having narrowly lost the last three.
For Northampton, who won the competition back in 2000, it would be a first final for them since 2011, when Leinster mounted an epic second-half comeback to beat them in Cardiff.
Besides a place in the final, many players on both sides will be looking to impress, in what is a last chance to put their hand up for a place on the upcoming Lions tour.
Leinster will play Northampton at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, on May 3 (kick-off, 5.30pm).
The referee for Saturday's game is France's Pierre Brousset.
In Ireland the match will be shown on RTÉ2 and RTÉ player, with coverage starting at 4.45pm.
The game will also be shown live on Premier Sports and beIN Sports.
While Leinster lost just their second game of the season, against the Scarlets last weekend, the form of their first-choice 23 has been sensational.
They have yet to concede a point in the Champions Cup knockout stages this season, beating Harlequins 62-0 in the round of 16, before thrashing Glasgow 52-0 in their quarter-final.
Northampton have struggled in the English Premiership this season. The holders currently sit seventh out of ten teams.
However, despite their many England internationals, this may have hampered them with fatigue.
In Europe they had a favourable draw, beating Clermont Auvergne 46-24 in the round of 16, and hammering Castres 51-16 in the quarters.
Northampton director of rugby, Phil Dowson, said: "You look at [Leinster’s] system in the Scarlets game, you look at things from a technical point of view, what they’re looking at.
"But they are not going to show much that’s going to be relevant from a launch point of view for our game.
"The personnel, I think, will be wholly different but you can always see different elements of the game that are always worth watching to see what you can pick up
"But fundamentally, those [European] games against La Rochelle, Bristol away, Glasgow, Quins, Bath are the games that we’ve focussed on."
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