A new winner will be crowned as the champions of the Women’s Premier 15s as Gloucester-Hartpury and Exeter meet at the hosts’ aptly renamed stadium on Saturday.
Exeter were beaten finalists 12 months ago as Saracens clinched a third title at Sixways Stadium, but with them and previously permanent play-off fixture Harlequins treading water in the last year, Chiefs and the Cherry and Whites have surged to the showpiece.
Between them – including their two semi-final wins and excluding fixtures against each other – they have won 31 out of 34 league games, with Gloucester-Hartpury breaking their previous record of ten wins in a season with additional six triumphs, while Exeter too broke their tally for most wins as they matched their second-placed finish from last year.
Recruitment has been key to the Gloucester effort, and it has duly paid its reward as they stand on the verge, and as favourites to win the most prestigious prize in women’s club rugby having never previously made the semi-finals.
It’s unsurprising then that they have named a strong XV, the same team that beat Bristol in the semi-finals, and among those is co-captain and former World Player of the Year Zoe Aldcroft, who spoke about how their impressive recruitment has built their confidence to challenge for a title.
“We do always have belief, even through previous seasons,” she said. “But in the past, we’ve seemed to come out on the wrong side in big games.
“I think because we had some more great players in the door this summer it’s given us even more belief to turn those tight games into wins.
“It’s class that we have got ourselves to the final. When you are so consistent throughout the season, you want to give yourself a shot in the final, but we know there’s a lot of work to put in this week and we have been working hard to put everything out there on Saturday.”
Her fellow co-captain Natasha ‘Mo’ Hunt feels that confidence was also helped with their impressive away win against the same opponents in round one, where she starred in a victory that “spurred” them on.
But the Chiefs will also have huge confidence that their final pedigree will help them to victory on Saturday.
Having won the Allianz Cup in each of the last two seasons, they will also hope they can learn the lessons from their final defeat to Saracens in the league last season in bidding to also become the third team in history to win the Premier 15s.
“I’ll be honest, we weren’t ready to win it last year,” admitted assistant coach Steve Salvin. “We had built huge momentum up through the Cup run and that kind of carried us through the regular season and then to beating Bristol in the semi-final. After that, we didn’t really have the cohesion or the resilience to react to Saracens and the challenge they brought that day.
“This year has been a lot different, we’ve had to deal with a lot more adversity this time. We’ve had much tougher tests running into this final, we even lost a couple of games, but the girls have kept working incredibly hard and doing everything we have asked of them.
“Look, we’re under no illusions, we know this weekend is going to be just as tough. They [Gloucester] have had a fantastic season and they recruited very well last summer with some of the players they brought in. We fully understand we can win it this weekend, but we can also lose it, it’s what happens in that 80 minutes. As I said, though, the experience of last year sets us up nicely.”
The Chiefs make a change each in the forwards and backs. Up front, Irish international Edel McMahon comes in on the blindside for Abbie Fleming, who is on the bench, while in the backs Claudia MacDonald replaces Katie Buchanan on the wing.
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