{"id":958965,"date":"2026-05-14T09:22:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/958965\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T09:22:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:22:20","slug":"fin-smith-strengthens-case-for-england-start-after-winning-prem-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/958965\/","title":{"rendered":"Fin Smith strengthens case for England start after winning PREM award"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Barbarians<\/a><\/p>\n

Northampton Saints fly-half Fin Smith has been voted PREM Rugby\u2019s Gallagher Player of the Month for April.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 24-year-old beat off tough opposition from Leicester Tigers\u2019 Gabriel Hamer-Webb, Saracens\u2019 Noah Caluori and Bristol Bears\u2019 Kalaveti Ravouvou to win with 44% of the vote.<\/p>\n

The England playmaker scored 31 points across the two rounds, which included last-minute winners against Exeter and Bath, as Saints strengthened their position at the top of the table.<\/p>\n

This latest individual accolade will go a long way, with the inaugural Nations Championship<\/a> around the corner, and Smith looking to nail down the England number 10 shirt.<\/p>\n

Smith faces tough opposition from the experienced George Ford and his namesake, Marcus, but his growth as a player in recent months will not go unnoticed by head coach Steve Borthwick.<\/p>\n

With 17 international caps to his name already, and having started the last two matches for his country, Smith<\/a> will be feeling confident ahead of the upcoming squad announcement.<\/p>\n

Saints<\/a> fans have turned out in the masses online to show support for their man. One supporter said: \u201cCongratulations Fin, a nice birthday present and one you totally deserve!\u201d, while another added, \u201cWell done fin, well deserved, keep kicking, be there Friday to support you all x\u201d.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as\u00a0a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a>\u00a0for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

Sir Graham Henry reveals his \u2018number one trait\u2019 to becoming a \u2018great All Black\u2019 after taking shock NZ Rugby role<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Prem Rugby Player of the Month<\/b><\/p>\n

October<\/strong> \u2013 Edoardo Todaro (Northampton Saints)
December<\/strong> \u2013 Ellis Genge (Bristol Bears)
January<\/strong> \u2013 Billy Searle (Leicester Tigers)
March<\/strong> \u2013 Will Wand (Leicester Tigers)
April<\/strong> \u2013 Fin Smith (Northampton Saints)<\/p>\n

The judges for the 2025\/26 Gallagher PREM<\/a> season are:<\/strong> Jill Douglas (ITV, BBC), Ali Eykyn (TNT Sports), Hugh Godwin (The i Paper), Chris Jones (BBC), Alex Lowe (The Times), Ugo Monye (BBC, TNT Sports), Nick Mullins (TNT Sports), Charles Richardson (Telegraph), and Claire Thomas (BBC, TNT Sports).<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Springboks legends\u2019 \u2018loophole\u2019 Richie Mo\u2019unga prediction after \u2018stupid\u2019 NZ Rugby decision for South Africa tour<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northampton Saints fly-half Fin Smith has been voted PREM Rugby\u2019s Gallagher Player of the Month for April. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":958966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,393,7613,4884,225,90462,12,10327,6875,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-958965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-fin-smith","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-home-page","13":"tag-internationals","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-northampton-saints","16":"tag-premiership","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116572202595044732","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/958966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}