{"id":581730,"date":"2026-05-13T13:14:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/581730\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T13:14:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:14:07","slug":"northampton-saints-set-for-historic-sri-lanka-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/581730\/","title":{"rendered":"Northampton Saints set for historic Sri Lanka match"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">August&#8217;s match will be played at the 10,000-capacity Racecourse International Stadium in the Sri Lankan capital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Saints said the country &#8220;boasts a rich rugby heritage spanning over 140 years&#8221;, with touring sides from England, New Zealand and the British &amp; Irish Lions making stopovers there more than a century ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">England toured the country in 1971, while the British &amp; Irish Lions visited as part of their tours of New Zealand and Australia in 1930 and 1950.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This tour symbolizes a revival of that historic connection,&#8221; the English club said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Saabir Cader, founder and director of the APL, said: &#8220;I warmly invite the loyal Saints supporters, the Shoe Army, to visit our beautiful island in August.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The club said further details for fans wishing to travel to the match would be available &#8220;in due course&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"August&#8217;s match will be played at the 10,000-capacity Racecourse International Stadium in the Sri Lankan capital. Saints said&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-581730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}