Barely five minutes had been played when the incident occurred.
George Furbank of Northampton Saints leaves the field on a medical stretcher after picking up a head injury(Image: 2025 Gaspafotos/MB Media)
England international George Furbank took a sickening blow to the head before being removed from the field by a medical cart.
The incident occurred in the Champions Cup final between Northampton Saints and Bordeaux Begles at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on Saturday afternoon.
Furbank had attempted to catch a cross-field kick from Maxime Lucu when he tumbled to the ground as the ball bounced away.
A surging Romain Buros was haring after the ball when Furbank attempted to get up, causing Buros’ knee to connect with Furbank in an horrific collision.
Just four minutes had been played in the Welsh capital when Furbank went down, causing the match to be stopped for a number of minutes while medical professionals tended to the Saints back. Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby.
Referee Nika Amashukeli decided it was simply a rugby incident and there was no penalty or card against Buros.
Once it was deemed safe to do so, Furbank was removed from the field on a medical cart wearing a brace and being administered what looked like oxygen, prompting sympathetic applause from both sets of fans.
It was a surprise that Furbank was involved at all with Saints today, after suffering an injury against Castres in the quarter-final.
The 28-year-old had no game-time between that game and the final today.
“It’s always a gamble”, said Phil Dowson ahead of the match.
“Whenever you bring someone back from an injury, there’s always a risk. He hasn’t been a mile away from coming back. He’s fortunate that the timing has worked well, he’s worked very hard.”
This final follows the EPCR Challenge Cup final between Bath and Lyon on Friday night, with the English Premiership side winning convincingly in a 37-12 score line.
That final had a controversy of their own, with Bath flanker Sam Underhill escaping a red card for a head-on-head collision with Davit Niniashvili.
Despite appearing to be a straight red card on the replays, referee Hollie Davidson gave a yellow card, prompting a strong reaction on social media.
Former England international Andy Goode simply suggested it was a red card “all day long”, while La Rochelle head coach Ronan O’Gara posted on X: “Players safety… (mind blown emojis)”. Read more about that here.