Prowse: Saints excited to kick-off Cup campaign

Lock Ed Prowse is thrilled to be back in a Northampton Saints shirt after recovering from the injury he sustained at the close of the 2024/25 campaign. 

In the final match of last term, 24-year-old Prowse was handed the Saints captaincy for the first time but the occasion was sadly cut short when the lock dislocated his elbow just 16 minutes into the match. 

But after working hard on recovery over the summer, Prowse is now back to full fitness, having featured in both of Saints’ preseason encounters against Bedford Blues and Glasgow Warriors in recent weeks, and is relishing the start of the regular season with a trip to Saracens in the PREM Rugby Cup this week. 

“I’m really looking forward to this season,” Prowse said.

“Hopefully, I can kick on from where I left off last year and keep progressing and keep playing as much as possible.

“Obviously, our league form probably wasn’t where we wanted it to be last year, finishing eighth, but we’re definitely right up there in terms of competitiveness. 

“We just need to focus on how consistent we can be this season.”

Last term was something of a whirlwind for the Saints Academy graduate, who switched from prop to lock over the off-season and went from strength to strength from there; first earning a place in Saints’ line-up across their PREM Rugby Cup campaign before progressing into Investec Champions Cup squads through the season. 

Prowse’s breakthrough campaign saw him feature 11 times and culminated in a place in Northampton’s matchday squad for the Investec Champions Cup Final, where he ran out at the Principality Stadium in front of 70,000 people. 

He said: “If you told me at the start of last season, after I transitioned into the second row, that I’d be playing in the Champions Cup final, I never would have believed you. 

“So I’m so grateful for that opportunity; it was an unbelievable experience.

“Hopefully, I get to do that again. You don’t get to play many of those games, so you’ve got to take your chances when you’re there, and unfortunately, we couldn’t get it over the line on the day, but I really enjoyed it.

"There are nerves going into any week, there was a lot of energy around that week. Everyone was excited, and I probably didn’t get nervous until right before the game; I was just focusing on what I could do.”

Now Prowse’s attentions turn to Saints’ first competitive game of the season, and the upcoming trip to Saracens in the PREM Rugby Cup – the exact same fixture that the lock made his debut in to become Saints #2048 back in 2022.

Northampton reached the quarter-finals of that competition last term but struggled to maintain their form in the Gallagher PREM and ultimately finished eighth in the league despite their European success. 

Ahead of the start of the regular season, Prowse added: “There aren't many games in the league nowadays so it’s about how good you can be every week. 

“Our away form let us down last season, but we were able to make cinch Stadium a bit of a fortress. 

“We certainly need to bolster our away form. Preseason has been absolutely massive in preparing for that. 

“We’ve done a few trips away and are trying to get that feel for things and making almost sub-optimal, I suppose. Not everything’s going to go right all the time, so we’ve had a massive focus on that, and hopefully we can perform on away days.”