Saracens look to keep pressure on the East Midlands
Run-on debutant?
By Saracens4Life
December 31 2010
Firstly, I have an admission to make. I haven’t got an exciting song as part of this week’s match preview. Sadly I am nowhere near as talented or industrious a lyricist as Darraghgirl is.
If, though, you can cope with that disappointment and bring yourselves to read on, there is a most fascinating contest taking place up in Stockport this Sunday, as Sale Sharks, a club in off-field turmoil, host a misfiring Saracens side who need a win to keep the pressure on Northampton and Leicester, who have been the pace-setters throughout this Aviva Premiership season.
The latest Wembley extravaganza did result in a Saracens victory, and against Wasps that is never something to be either underestimated or under-celebrated, but the performance delivered by the Men in Black did little to raise the sub-zero temperatures. The Saracens set-piece was dominant, with Steve Borthwick and the rejuvenated Ernst Joubert to the fore, but with the evergreen Serge Betsen unsettling young Owen Farrell throughout (just as he did to Jonny Wilkinson in Paris several years ago), Sarries never had the territory to exploit their dominance. In the end, it took a magnificent second-half cameo from Andy Saull to inject the required pace into Saracens’ game.
24 hours later, and 100 miles north, Sale faced a rampant Leicester Tigers side, which played with a pace and physicality that the Sharks simply could not deal with. Their cause cannot have been helped by the seemingly harsh decision taken by owner Brian Kennedy to sack Mike Brewer, their ex-All Black Director of Rugby; the game at Welford Road was Sale’s first under the new leadership of Peter Anglesea, a former back-row at the club. Anglesea would not have liked what he saw from a defensive point-of-view, as Leicester moved the ball wide and outstripped the Sale backline with regular ease. No doubt this will be a major focus of Anglesea’s training sessions this week. There were positives though, as the Sharks managed to score three tries - no mean feat at Welford Road, and two of these were wonderfully constructed team tries. Dwayne Peel’s pace from the base was a constant threat to the Tigers’ back row, Anitelea Tuilagi crashed over the gain line time and again, and the work rate of the New Zealand Maori second row Kristian Ormsby was, as usual, most impressive.
The makeup of the Sale team really depends on players returning from injury. Andrew Sheridan, Charlie Hodgson and James Gaskell are all back in training, and it seems to be a race against time as to whether they will be fit enough to line up against Sarries. In the front row, I would expect Marc Jones to continue at hooker in the absence of the injured Neil Briggs, and Karena Wihongi, the giant ex-Bourgoin prop who held up admirably against the Leicester scrum last week, to start at tighthead. If Andrew Sheridan remains unavailable, then the impressive youngster Lee Imiolek is likely to retain his place at loosehead. At second row, Kristian Ormsby is certain to retain his shirt, and the experienced Englishman Chris Jones will be looking to make his second start having returned from injury last week. I would have thought that James Gaskell, if fit, would slot on to the bench.
In the back row, Sale are missing ex-Sarries, ladies’ favourite David Seymour on the openside, but the giant 19st Fijian Sisaro Koyamaibole should return at No. 8 having pulled out against Leicester at the last-minute. At flanker, I would expect the increasingly impressive Carl Fearns to pack down alongside Asaeli Boko, the Fijian blindside released by Saracens last season.
Dwayne Peel is sure to start at scrum-half again after his zippy performance last week. Sale’s medical team will have been pulling out all the stops to get Charlie Hodgson back on the field, especially with Anglesea having called upon his senior players to lead from the front as he looks to recover his side’s confidence. If Hodgson does not make it, Nick Macleod is a very able deputy, with a booming right boot, solidity in defence and competent distribution. In the centres, I can see no reason why the chalk-and-cheese partnership of Andy Tuilagi and Mathew Tait will not continue; their combination of power and pace is sure to cause the Sarries’ defence a few problems. Similarly, at full-back, the Auckland-born Paul Williams, solid both in stature (6ft 2in and 15st) and under the high ball, has been one of the stand-out players for the Sharks this season, having been brought in from the Auckland Blues by Mike Brewer.
On the wing, Mark Cueto, recently appointed by Anglesea as the new team captain and seemingly continuing his form from the Autumn Internationals, will start on the left flank. Ben Cohen, though, having at last rediscovered some of the form that made him a crucial member of England’s World Cup winning squad, has been sidelined for several weeks with a knee injury sustained in the Tigers match. The obvious candidates to replace him would be the ex-Bath winger Rhys Crane or the rapid Samoan sevens specialist Mikaele Pesamino.
All in all, it is a squad packed with talent and ability which so far has been a long way off hitting its potential. I do worry though that, as the club starts to settle down into life without Mike Brewer, and with Anglesea’s rallying cry to the Sale supporters after the Leicester match, they will be a very pumped up side and they will be desperate for a home win to engender some confidence.
On the Sarries side, I expect Carstens and Nieto to start, with Gill and Du Plessis on the bench. Interestingly, Deon Carstens is 6th on the list of ‘offensive penalties conceded’, and Nieto and Du Plessis have both conceded 4 defensive penalties. This does seem to show a trend in our scrummaging – Carstens weak on our own put-in, the tighthead weak on the opposition put-in; hopefully both these problems can be rectified. I, like many, think Brits will take a much-deserved break so he returns fresh for the crucial Irish home game. Given Brits’ importance to us, neither George nor Reynecke are getting much game time at the moment. I would start with George and have Reynecke on the bench, but for no particular reason; if either of these impress on Sunday, I’d be tempted to start them and use Brits as an impact player against the Not Nots.
In the second row, I am sure Borthwick will start at captain after an impressive display last week. Sale are second-bottom in the ‘lineouts won’ category, and the third in the ‘lineouts lost’ category, so Borthwick et al. will look to have the same success there as they did against Wasps. Alongside him, I think Beefy Botha will get a start, as Huge is owed a rest and for me a combination of Borthwick and Hayden Smith lacks grunt in the scrum and in terms of carrying.
Ernst Joubert will retain his place at No. 8 as he looks to harass Marc Jones and the Sale lineout. I think Andy Saull’s match-changing cameo off the bench last week will assure him a starting berth, and I think Kelly Brown will retain his place at blindside. I’d love to see Jacques Burger on the bench as an impact player.
In the half-backs, I think Wiggy will rotate with De Kock, who has been unspectacular in the last few weeks. Wiggy will be relishing a return to Edgeley Park, and his excellent kicking game will help to relieve some of the pressure from young Farrell’s shoulders. On that note, I do expect Farrell to retain his starting spot, despite a slightly off-day at Wembley. As other people have said, he is only 19 and it is all part of the learning curve; there have been many international fly halves who haven’t coped with Serge Betsen as well as Owen did on Sunday.
I expect Barritt to start at 12, and I reckon Gavin could start at 13 [Gavin Mairs, in the Torygraph, has claimed that Dr V has stated that this will be so, Ed]. I know he wants to play in a decision-making role, but I, like Mark McCall, would like to see him settle in to the team before he adopts a playmaker role; besides, neither Farrell nor Barritt deserve to be ousted. Henson at 13 would allow Tagi to move back to the wing, where I would expect him to be joined by Noah Cato, thus giving Short and Strettle a rest. The confirmed four-week absence of Chris Wyles has all but cemented Alex Goode’s return to the starting XV at full-back. At Wembley, Goode showed signs that he was rediscovering the magic that made him the stand-out full-back in the league at the end of last-year, and with seemingly a four-week run ahead of him, he has a chance to develop some consistency into a thus far disjointed season.
Prediction? I think Sale are a bit of an unknown quantity given their off-field troubles, but there is certainly the quality, if not the confidence, to cause Sarries some problems. I think we will target the set-piece as we did on Sunday, and I think Farrell will be better able to convert what is likely to be a decent amount of possession into territory and points. The (potential) absence of Brits would reduce our options in attack, but the arrival of Henson as an extra distributor, and just someone with a bit of magic, should compensate for this. It will undoubtedly be tough, but I expect Sarries to pull off what would be a very useful win – Northampton will surely take the points at home to Quins, but Leicester will not find it easy as they travel to Sandy Park, packed out by the vociferous Exeter supporters. A win at Edgeley Park might just see us leapfrog Leicester into second – a great way to start the New Year!
Sale Sharks vs. Saracens
Edgeley Park – Sunday 2nd January 2011 – K.O. 2pm
Referee – Dave Pearson
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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2011:01:08:10:25:44 by TonyTaff.