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Enable Cookies<\/a> Slade leads Exeter past Saracens to book Bath showdown<\/p>\n Henry Slade led the way as Exeter emerged emphatic 32-12 winners from their grudge match against Saracens to secure a Gallagher Prem play-off against Bath.<\/p>\n Slade ran in the crucial 47th-minute try that placed the Chiefs in a commanding position and also landed three conversions and two penalties, with Max Norey, Andrea Zambonin and Stephen Varney touching down too.<\/p>\n The classy England centre inspired Exeter’s fightback after they had spent the second quarter of the shoot-out for a semi-final place under heavy pressure before coming alive to end Saracens’ five-match winning run.<\/p>\n Even without England star Immanuel Feyi-Waboso because of a facial injury, they were comfortably the better side on a blustery day at Sandy Park to claim bragging rights against their fierce rivals.<\/p>\n They finish the regular season in third place and next meet Bath at the Recreation Ground on Saturday for a place in the final.<\/p>\n The defeat signalled the conclusion of Mark McCall’s trophy laden 15-year reign as Saracens director of rugby, with the former Ireland centre stepping down at the end of the season.<\/p>\n Leaders Northampton beaten by Harlequins <\/p>\n Image: Tom Lawday’s try with his final touch as a Harlequins player earned his club a 38-31 victory over leaders Northampton.<\/p>\n A much-changed Saints led four times at the Stoop – which included scoring their 100th try of the Prem season through scrum-half Jonny Weimann, who scored twice, as did captain Alex Dombrandt for Quins.<\/p>\n It is a still a campaign Quins will want to put behind them swiftly, though, as results elsewhere meant they finished ninth and missed out on qualification for the Investec Champions Cup.<\/p>\n Lawday’s fairy tale farewell moment was a nice way to sign off for the hosts though, and Northampton losing out at the death means they have a home semi-final against East Midlands rivals Leicester to look forward to on Friday.<\/p>\n Sale seal Champions Cup place with win over Bristol<\/p>\n Sale’s disappointing campaign ended on a high with a comfortable 38-17 bonus-point win over an understrength Bristol to confirm their place in next season’s Champions Cup.<\/p>\n Alex Sanderson’s Sharks have made the play-offs in each of the past three campaigns but ended this season in seventh, their lowest placing since finishing in that position in 2018\/19.<\/p>\n They needed a point to guarantee a place in next term’s Champions Cup and a dominant first-half display laid the platform for a thumping six-try win over a Bristol side who finished this season in sixth.<\/p>\n Twitter<\/p>\n This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies. Enable Cookies<\/a> England fly-half George Ford opened the scoring and lock Ben Bamber soon doubled Sale’s lead before winger Arron Reed and full-back Joe Carpenter also touched down.<\/p>\n Bristol, who named an all-English matchday 23 to ensure they meet the RFU’s EQP regulations, hit back with two tries from winger Noah Heward and hooker Tomas Gwilliam before the break.<\/p>\n But Sale scored a fifth try through Rekeiti Ma’asi-White and Reed claimed his second before Bristol fly-half Sam Worsley completed the scoring late on.<\/p>\n Redshaw hat-trick helps Gloucester past Newcastle<\/p>\n Gloucester sealed their Champions Cup place for next season with a convincing 54-21 victory over bottom-club Newcastle at Kingsholm as the bonus-point win was enough to deprive Harlequins of the eighth and final spot.<\/p>\n It was not all plain-sailing for Gloucester as they trailed at the end of the first quarter but they then proceeded to blow away their opponents, starting with a four-try blitz.<\/p>\n Ben Redshaw scored a hat-trick of tries and Arthur Clark, Caolan Englefield, Max Llewellyn, James Venter and Seb Blake were also on the scoresheet, with Charlie Atkinson converting seven.<\/p>\n George McGuigan, Tom Christie and Simon Benitez Cruz scored Newcastle’s tries. Brett Connon converted two and Ben Healy one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bath secured home advantage in the Gallagher Prem play-offs after beating Leicester 24-22 at a rainswept Recreation Ground.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-626959","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\/626959","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=626959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n Allow Cookies Once<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Tom](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/skysports-tom-lawday-harlequins_7267016.jpg\")
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\n Tom Lawday scored a memorable try in his final moments as a Harlequins player<\/p>\n
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