Eye Eye. Bayonne's visit to VR.

It seemed that only season ticket holders, and a few Bayonne supporters making the most of Euro parity for a cheap weekend away, made it on a cold and dreary Sunday afternoon to Vicarage Road. The match was a meaningless one for Bayonne; nothing to play for except pride, but Sarries needed the win.

I thought the whole approach to Ski’s minute of applause was well done, tasteful and respected: I think I prefer it to the minute’s silence. 

So on to the game; the start forming the pattern for all of the restarts. Chris Jack gathered superbly, stayed on his feet and was driven on. Ten seconds later the first of a number of Bayonne infringements resulted in a penalty. Gordon Ross had his kicking boots on, so 3-0 after less than a minute. The restart was snaffled up by – Chris Jack and Sarries drove onwards.

Bayonne had come to defend and they were very aggressive at the breakdown, spoiling the ball on a number of occasions, without ever quite making a turnover. Given the slow ball, Sarries made heavy work of it, but playing on or around the Bayonne 22, meant every transgression was punished by 3 points. I think it was 2 offsides and 1 not rolling away, but I was confused by the referees signal of clapping with clenched fists.

 There was a scare too, as Bayonne finally got some ball to work with; the winger Lhande, who looked quite useful, skipped around Rats, but Goode was on hand to usher him into touch. Wikus landed an arm on the head of the ducking scrum-half Garcia, but from the resulting penalty Larrechea pushed it wide.  

After the fourth penalty, Sarries were well in front, they started to up the game in search of the bonus point we really needed. What seemed a certain try, with an overlap on the far side, was butchered by Powell with white line fever, then Rats had a wonderful little run down the near touchline before kicking on for the chase. I do not think he would have recovered it, but the Bayonne winger took no chances and tackled him well after the ball was gone. Both touch judge and referee missed the actual offence so were not able to give the penalty; it was a 22 drop out.

But Sarries were getting angry now and a fine passage of play saw Owen held up just short. Excellent pressure from DeKock and all of the back-row saw the Bayonne number 8 Baget being carried over his line. Sarries had a 5 metre scrum near one touchline and both Goode and Rats lined up on the Rous side. The ball came out swiftly and a run from DeKock created an easy overlap. Rats ran in for the try, but could not get round behind the posts to make the kick easy. Ross missed, to make the score 17-0 at half time.         

 The rest of the half was only noticeable for 3 yellow cards. First Guillaume Bernad made a very late tackle on DeKock and just before the break, Cencus succumbed to the tainting of his opposite number Fiorini; he seemed to be held by one and hit by another Bayonne player; I hear that gouging was taking place. The two props who were both sent off last week for the same offence had an early cup of half-time tea. Although Cencus was active around the park, Mercey certainly seemed to cope with his replacement more easily than Cencus had his protagonist.  There was a spell at the beginning of the second half that saw Sarries play their best rugby of the game and pretty much the best I have seen them play all season, scoring 3 tries. The first was a classic; Goode took a high ball with a mark and seeing the defence expecting the kick to touch took of with a run. On halfway he created an overlap for Noah Cato who ran infield in search of support. Finding DeKock as he approached the full-back Acebes, Neil had an easy run in under the posts. 24-0.  

Lloyd and Hugh Vyvyan replaced Aguero and Steve Borthwick and the tempo of Sarries play continued with driving runs from everywhere and it only seemed a question of when the tries would come. Finally a miss-pass to Cato on the wing let him in for an easy score, and Ross nailed the near touchline kick; 31-0. Cato was substituted by Rodd Penney straight afterwards      

Sarries were gunning for the bonus point and it soon arrived. The ball was driven first one way then the other before finally finishing up with Chris Jack in his favoured wing position. He had the bulk to crash over from close out and the game was effectively over. Ross missed a tricky conversion for 36-0.

Although there was around 20 minutes still to play, the game petered out; Sarries had the 5 points in the bag and there only remained the ignominy of a zero score from Bayonne. They did not help themselves as they threw the ball into touch at least 4 times; I think the wingers had more ball from Sarries boot than they did from their outside-centre. There was time for Hugh Vyvvan to be wound up enough to retaliate and get himself binned.

All in all, it was a reasonable performance against a limited Bayonne side. Positives, the four tries scored and zero points conceded. Chris Jack snaffled all the restarts; in defence Sarries looked pretty impregnable, although Bayonne could have tested them more another day. All of the forwards played very well. Downsides, the scrummage was creaking a bit; there was literally a sticking point in the centres - Powell looked as unlikely to pass as Farrell, he also looked just as ponderous; results elsewhere mean that Sarries’ dropped bonus points in the away games to date seem to portend an away semifinal, at best.

There was a 15 minute period where we looked untouchable; 80 minutes of that next week please.  (Hear, hear, Ed!)

 Scorers: Saracens: Tries: Ratuvou (35min), De Kock (46), Cato (54), Jack (60). Conversions: Ross 2. Penalty goals: Ross 4 (2, 8, 14, 25). Scoring sequence (Saracens first): 3-0, 6-0, 9-0, 12-0, 17-0 (half-time), 24-0, 31-0, 36-0.

Saracens: A Goode (rep: G Jackson, 69); K Ratuvou, K Sorrell, A Powell, N Cato (rep: R Penney, 54); G Ross, N de Kock (rep: M Rauluni, 61); M Aguero (rep: N Lloyd, 52), F Ongaro (rep: A Kyriacou, 71), C Johnston (sin-bin, 40+7-51; rep: T Mercey, 61), S Borthwick (rep: H Vyvyan, 8-14, 52; sin-bin, 68-79), C Jack, B Skirving (rep: T Mercey, 40+7-51), W van Heerden, M Owen.

Bayonne: M Acebes; B Lhande, S Gerber, C Gower, B Fall; D Larrechea (rep: P Elhorga, 41), V Inigo (rep: M Lopez-Herrero, 72); J Fiorini (sin-bin, 40+7-51; rep: G Bernad, 51), A Heguy (rep: D Roumieu, 50), R Blake (rep: J Fiorini, 63), C Bergez (rep: A Etchegaray, 51; sin-bin, 68-79), N Lafitte (sin-bin, 40+1-49), G Bernad (rep: P Lafond, 40+7), L Massabeau (rep: A Springgay, 51), M Baget.

Referee: N Patterson (Scotland). Attendance: 5,365.