The Lost Chronicles: Fade

Every season has its turning point and down the years since the game went open, Sarries have had a few truly memorable turning points which have shifted a season one way or the other and after that, the season's hopes and expectations either heighten or just fade away.

Think back to October 2000 when Cardiff came to Vicarage Road in that season’s Heineken Cup. Sarries were flying in the league and had just beaten the mighty Toulouse down there only a fortnight before. Rob Howley and Craig Quinnell led the blue and black charge and Sarries were suddenly in a spin from which they didn’t recover, failing to qualify for the last eight in the Heineken and missing out on the following season’s competition courtesy of a fifth-placed finish in the Premiership. 

It’s not just individual games that can turn a season. Back in March 2006, a strike against the head in a Sale 5m scrum by Matt Cairns ensured, for me at least, that the spectre of relegation was banished as Sarries held on to win the game 16-9 and stay up.

This season has been no different. On 30 December 2007, Saracens were playing well and challenging for the top two in the Guinness table after six wins from their first eight games. In front of the biggest crowd at Vicarage Road in a decade and what was probably the biggest television audience for a regular season game on Sky, Newcastle were seriously underestimated by the Saracens management who rested key personnel like Glen Jackson, only to see the Falcons play the rugby and take the points.

Since that day just before the New Year, the season has been in steady decline and even that second forty minutes against Biarritz - probably the best rugby Sarries have played this century – has failed in papering over the cracks. So we know already what the turning point of the season was and when it happened.

With just five league games left to salvage Heineken Cup qualification (forget the play-offs, they disappeared on St David’s Day at London Irish) and three of those coming against Wasps, Gloucester and Bath, Saracens are already in the situation where they have to rely upon other teams fronting up or slipping up to sneak in by the back door.

Let’s be frank; last weekend’s defeat – the biggest of the season by a distance and an idication that it's unlikely to be turned around in the Heineken Quarter Final – was no real surprise. Sarries have been playing poorly and are still, in spite of us knowing for at least two or three seasons, unable to deal effectively with the flat four blitz defence. Ospreys were superior technically in every facet of the game, except perhaps the scrum, but allied to that superiority was the air of confidence and togetherness not seen in this parish this year.

Some of it has come down to selection. I thought that the main reason for the abject performance against Quins in February was not simply down to a bad Gordon Ross performance, but down to the selection of a back row trio that was bigger and slower than that of the opposition, who managed to get to the breakdown first and slow down good Sarries ball and slow ball gives the defence time to regroup, something that Quins did well.

Another factor has been injuries to Andy Farrell and Kevin Sorrell and with Glen Jackson having a different centre combination virtually every week since Faz ‘n’ Kev were sidelined; no wonder the back line has failed to fire like it did earlier in the season. Northampton found themselves in an identical situation for most of last season; one where they fielded at least a dozen different combinations at 12 and 13, and we all know what happened to them.

For my money, and that of several long-standing supporters, this latest, alarming decline has little to do with injuries, management or just being beaten by better teams, and a lot to do with players’ attitudes.

Rumours abound about discontent with among the playing corps over their management, with some players – no name, no pack drill – being omitted not on form, but on their level of annoyance to the management. Other stories coming out of the club are of unhappiness over the contract renewal process. Further tales have been told about player cliques reminiscent of the latter days of the Francois Pienaar reign and pretty much all of Steve Diamond’s tenure as head coach.

This is a worry because if players’ minds are elsewhere, be they on a move out of the club, a re-negotiation to stay or just wanting to stick pins into effigies of Messrs. Gaffney, Kennedy and Graham, then the team’s performance will suffer, and indeed has suffered.

We all know that this squad is capable of better things, so do its members, and its coaches. However, if what I have been hearing is true, then we might as well get the wallpaper in for hanging in May and break out the Rough Guide to Romania because we’ve been here before and we know, from repetitive, painful past experience, it rarely gets any better. And if the team and management don’t sort things out and soon, then season will just fade to nothingness; which is both sad and frustrating when you think about the way 2007-08 began.