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The France-bound Courtney Lawes says his Northampton side deserved to be crowned English champions but admitted they had ridden their luck against 14-man Bath before clinching their first Premiership title for a decade.
Lawes, who celebrated his final appearance for his hometown club by turning up bare-chested and wearing ski goggles to the post-match press conference, acknowledged Saintsā performance had left much to be desired after hoisting the trophy aloft alongside his teammate Lewis Ludlam. āIām actually still livid from the game,ā said Lawes, speaking to TNT Sports. āI donāt think we could have played worse.
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āTo be honest, I couldnāt believe we had actually won it because we tried so hard to lose it. At the end of the game, I was actually pretty pissed off. Sometimes it doesnāt look pretty ā and it certainly didnāt today ā but we won, and thatās what matters. Iām over the moon and couldnāt have asked for more.
āBath were a great team today and they really put us under a lot of pressure [but] I think weāve deserved it throughout the season. Seeing these lads grow up has been really special. There are a lot of things I will never do again at the Saints but I owe the club so much. Iām just really happy to have been able to deliver what the club deserves.ā
Lawes, who also confirmed afterwards he would like to be considered for next yearās British & Irish Lions tour to Australia despite his impending move to Brive, suggested the first-half dismissal of Bathās Beno Obano had, in some ways, made life harder for Northampton because Bath had no option but to raise their game. āIāve been on both ends of it,ā said Lawes. āSometime when you receive a red card it actually galvanises you a bit. Youāve got nothing to lose and thereās no pressure on you. All of a sudden all the pressure is piled on to the side with 15 and we really felt that today. We didnāt fire on all cylinders and didnāt get our game on to the pitch. But we did enough to win and thatās what matters.ā
Bathās disappointed coach, Johann van Graan, called the Obano red card āpart of the gameā but suggested the margins involved under the current high-tackle framework were almost impossibly tight. āI donāt believe that was foul play, I believe thatās a collision between two extremely powerful rugby players,ā he said. ā[But] ultimately that was the refereeās call and weāll stick by that. Iām not going to get into the whole red card debate, itās unfortunate.ā
Source: theguardian.com