Northampton Saints U18s Head Coach Charlie Reed has named his side for their fifth-place play-off fixture with Exeter Chiefs on the PREM Next Gen Academy League finals day at Kingsholm on Sunday (22 February, kick-off 3:15pm).
Saints have already emerged victorious once this year over Sunday’s opponents, kicking off their Next Gen season with a high-scoring 64-51 victory over the Chiefs in Round 1.
Ahead of this weekend’s final outing for the Academy league side, Reed has made four personnel changes to his starting XV from the side that faced Bristol in Round 9 at Shelford RFC.
In the backs, Will Howes wears the starting fullback shirt after his try last weekend against Bristol. Another try-scorer against the Bears, Will Hepher, who wore the No.8 last week, starts at outside centre with Cal Tarry.
Elijah Jeyes and Hardy Linell start on this wings with Kai Manson once again running the show from fly-half, and Sonny Goode captains the side from scrum-half.
In the pack, Ferdi Barnett-Vincent comes in to start at hooker in an otherwise unchanged starting front-row, and George Tonga’uiha moves from the bench to start at lock.
The other two changes to the starting XV come in the pack, with Ronan Perkins starting at openside, and Charlie Hammick coming in at No.8.
On the bench, Alex Mead returns from injury, and Caelin Chin provides cover at scrum-half.
“For us, Sunday is about the boys going out and enjoying themselves in this last dance as a group all together,” said Reed.
“We didn’t get the result we wanted to last week against Bristol, but this weekend, what we’ve targeted for one final time this year is for this group of boys to go out and put a performance that they can be proud of, and that’s all that matters.”
Exeter Chiefs U18s vs Northampton Saints U18s
PREM Next Gen Academy League, Fifth-place playoff game
Saturday 22 February, 2026
Kick-off: 3.15pm
15 Will Howes
14 Elijah Jeyes
13 Will Hepher
12 Cal Tarry
11 Hardy Linnell
10 Kai Manson
9 Sonny Goode (c)
1 Lucas Veevers
2 Ferdi Barnett-Vincent
3 Aiden Reid
4 Rafferty Hewitt
5 George Tonga’uiha
6 Seb Dare
7 Ronan Perkins
8 Charlie Hammick
Replacements:
16 Charlie Utting
17 Ben Jones
19 Alex Mead
19 Harry Nath
21 Reuben Williams
22 Caelin Chin
23 Ashton Cox
The game will be streamed live on the PREM Rugby YouTube channel.