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English clubs can break France’s Champions Cup dominance claims Lion
By PA
Alex Mitchell believes Northampton have shown it is possible for English clubs to compete in the Champions Cup following their run to this season’s final.
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French teams continued their stranglehold on the competition, with Bordeaux-Begles’ 28-20 victory over Northampton in Cardiff making it five successive years that a Top 14 side has won it.
Across the past 10 seasons, France have provided twice as many finalists as any other country, while Saracens and Exeter are the only English clubs to win the tournament since 2007.
Saints, though, led the way this term, beating Leinster, Bulls, Munster, Clermont Auvergne and Castres (twice) on route to the Principality Stadium.
“I think a lot of (Premiership) clubs can take a lot of confidence from it,” Northampton and England scrum-half Mitchell said.
“This competition has been tough for English clubs in the last few years in terms of budgets and what-not. It has been a struggle.
“But I think we’ve shown that, regardless of that, if you front-up playing against these best teams, these quality outfits, you can do a job.
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“We showed that. We got to the final and we nearly won. It’s tough to take, but we can take a lot of credit from it.
“We have got a decent side and a lot of confidence in ourselves. That is what happened against Leinster (in the semi-finals) – we genuinely backed ourselves and had confidence that we could get a result, which we did.
“Regardless of all that (budgets and squad size), you need good coaching, which we’ve got, and the boys fronted-up.
“If we (English sides) do that and we are competitive about wanting to win, we can do good things.”
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Despite losing backs George Furbank and James Ramm to injuries inside the first five minutes, Saints rallied and pushed this season’s dominant Champions Cup team to the limit.
They were level 20-20 at the interval in front of a 70,000 crowd, which was the largest Champions Cup final attendance for 13 years, before Bordeaux closed things out during a tense second period.
Mitchell’s Saints and England half-back partner Fin Smith added: “We are just a little team from a small town in England with a bunch of mates playing together.
“Bordeaux are a giant of European rugby with some absolute rock stars in their team and some unbelievable firepower.
“So, to have gone toe-to-toe with them for 80 minutes – or a large part of that – particularly with some of the adversity we had to face with injuries and yellow cards, is something we can look back on with pride.
“The main thing is to stay together as a group, because it is easy to splinter when you have had a knock like this. I need to dust myself off and try to switch off from that result.
“Ultimately, until you play in another big final and get the result you want, it is always going to sting and sit there in the back of your mind. That is just the way it is.”
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