Watch every second of the Nations Championship live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nHe made 10 tackles and was the central target at lineout time in his 20th start for the Saints this season.<\/p>\n
The victory wasn’t easy, with Ikitau the standout for the Chiefs in defeat, almost nabbing Player of the Final honours despite the loss.<\/p>\n
It came after the John Eales Medalist made four line breaks, four offloads and set up their opening try with a brilliant no-look pass to Campbell Ridl.<\/p>\n
Hooper was also strong with his own try assist and double digit tackles and carries (both 11).<\/p>\n
But it’s the former Rebel who hoisted the trophy high, with incoming Force winger James Ramm also on hand for celebrations despite not featuring in the decider.<\/p>\n
In France, there was mixed success in the Top 14 semi-finals as Tom Banks and Jordan Uelese guided Monpellier into the decider.<\/p>\n
Banks scored the opener, with Uelese making three tackle busts as they defeated Stade Francais 25-15.<\/p>\n
They will face Toulouse, who ended Taniela Tupou and Racing 92’s campaign with a thumping 71-17 defeat, with Tupou coming off the bench.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, it was a massive moment in the MLR, with Wallabies great Chris Latham completing a perfect coaching season with Chicago Hounds after taking out the title.<\/p>\n
Former Rebels and Waratahs hooker Theo Fourie opened the scoring, with Aussies Charlie Abel, Nathan den Hoedt and Jake Turnbull all featuring in the win.<\/p>\n
Latham becomes the first coach ever in MLR history to guide a team through an undefeated season, with the Hounds winning all ten regular season games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two-Test Wallaby Josh Kemeny has helped Northampton to the English Premiership title with a 26-17 win over Exeter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,97542,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-753882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-aussies-abroad","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753882","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=753882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}