Image caption, Northampton narrowly beat 14-man Bath to win their first Premiership title in a decade in June
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Premiership champions Northampton will open the 2024-25 campaign away to Bath on Friday, 20 September in a repeat of last season’s final.
Saints will travel to the Recreation Ground for the first of 18 league rounds, with Newcastle Falcons also hosting Bristol Bears the same evening.
Northampton held on to narrowly beat 14-man Bath 25-21 and claim their first league title in 10 years in the Twickenham final in June.
Elsewhere across the opening weekend, Exeter play Leicester and Gloucester host Saracens on Saturday, 21 September, with Sale facing Harlequins on Sunday, 22 September.
The Premiership final will be held on Saturday, 14 June 2025, a week before the British and Irish Lions play Argentina in Dublin before heading off on their summer tour of Australia.
As part of a new television deal agreed in March, every match of the new season will be broadcast live on TNT Sports.
Among the 18 rounds of regular-season fixtures, stand-out games include Bristol playing West Country rivals Bath at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff for the first time.
The match in round 16 on 10 May will see the Bears swap their Ashton Gate home for the 75,000-seater south Wales venue in a game branded as the ‘Big Day Out’, to “reach new audiences and grow [Bristol’s] commercial revenue”.
The fixture aims to replicate the success of Harlequins and Saracens in recent years of playing a showpiece game at a major ground.
Saracens will host their London rivals at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on 22 March, while Quins will face Gloucester on 10 May at Twickenham Stadium.
The new Premiership campaign had been described as a “relaunch of the league” by chief executive Simon Massie-Taylor after three clubs went out of business two seasons ago.
There was again no promotion from, or relegation to, the Championship last season, although it could return for 2024-25.
The Rugby Football Union Council has proposed plans for a two-legged play-off which, if approved, would see a two-legged play-off between the bottom side in the Premiership and top side in the Championship.
The proviso is that the second-tier side must meet the Premiership’s minimum standards criteria, which it has not done in recent campaigns.
Premiership opening weekend fixtures
Bath v Northampton Saints (19:45 BST)
Newcastle Falcons v Bristol Bears (19:45 BST)
Exeter Chiefs v Leicester Tigers (15:05 BST)
Gloucester v Saracens (17:30 BST)
Sale Sharks v Harlequins (15:00 BST)
Source link : https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/articles/ceqdxzv3467o.amp
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Publish date : 2024-07-23 07:32:49
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