{"id":736490,"date":"2026-06-14T18:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T18:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/736490\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T18:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T18:22:13","slug":"wallaby-couldnt-be-more-excited-for-twickenham-experience-with-northampton-saints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/736490\/","title":{"rendered":"Wallaby ‘couldn’t be more excited’ for Twickenham experience with Northampton Saints"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Barbarians<\/a><\/p>\n

Wallabies and Northampton flanker Josh Kemeny could not hide his excitement about the prospect of playing at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham in the PREM Rugby Final.<\/p>\n

Kemeny, who arrived at Franklin\u2019s Gardens ahead of the 2024\/25 season, has been a revelation on the blindside and helped play his part in the Saints making the final.<\/p>\n

While he wasn\u2019t among the try scorers in Northampton<\/a>\u2018s 45-31 semi-final victory against Leicester Tigers on Friday, he has been a threat all season in that department.<\/p>\n

Kemeny has also been a reliable line-out option and carrier, which was evident in the win that booked the Saints\u2019 ticket to the PREM Rugby<\/a> final and a tie with Exeter.<\/p>\n

Excited<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the opportunity to play on the Twickenham turf that is most exciting Kemeny, who will be eager to win his first silverware for the Saints since moving to England.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll these games are the reason why I came here and it\u2019s my first time going into Twickenham so I\u2019m excited,\u201d the Australian back-row told the Northampton Chronicle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone knows Twickenham and I couldn\u2019t be more excited to be honest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t need to approach the week too differently and we need to build for Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Northampton v Leicester: Five takeaways as \u2018architect\u2019 Fin Smith beats Tigers with the boot but Henry Pollock \u2018pushes him all the way\u2019 at \u2018deafening\u2019 Gardens<\/a><\/p>\n

Northampton Saints player ratings: \u2018Fairy tale finale\u2019 for departing star while Henry Pollock \u2018looks a million dollars\u2019 in front of Steve Borthwick<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom Litchfield (3), Tommy Freeman, George Furbank (2) and Archie McParland crossed for Saints in their semi-final win as they came out on top over their local rivals.<\/p>\n

It was a match played at a frenetic speed that was hugely physical and Kemeny admits it was a tough test but one that was more than worth the pain due to the result.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a little bit battered and bruised but good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited and happy. It was physical, it was fast \u2013 it felt like 100 minutes, but it was electric.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially a team like Leicester, we saw the performance they put out against us last time and they did it for 80 minutes so we knew what they were going to come with. Respect to them.<\/p>\n

Improvements<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we did anything differently or planned anything differently, it was just execution and a higher level of physicality.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe probably improved our breakdown, our set-piece \u2013 the boring stuff that allows us to play the way we play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

He added on the tightness of the game: \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure it was a one-score game for most of it. They were knocking on the door the whole time, and we were too, so we\u2019re really pleased to come out on top.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the perfect example of home game advantage and how much that can feed your team. I absolutely love it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI played in some decent games since being here, but these ones at home are my favourite.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: PREM Rugby final confirmed: Northampton Saints v Exeter Chiefs fixture, date, kick-off time and how to watch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wallabies and Northampton flanker Josh Kemeny could not hide his excitement about the prospect of playing at Allianz…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,818,44,39992,20248,760,85],"class_list":["post-736490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-home-page","tag-news","tag-northampton-saints","tag-premiership","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}