Saracens v Cardiff Blues, LV= Cup

So to the new ground against the team from the Capital city of Wales and featuring all of the seasons in one day. Bright sunshine, cold winds, a rainbow and some rain from a sky featuring 50 shades of grey were all in evidence. With travel chaos for me (I took 7 different trains to get to and from the ground) I’ll be pleased when the Sarries coach starts going from Bishops Stortford. Still I managed to get to the ground before kick off; purchased a pint of Ruddles and tried to sit in my seat. Unfortunately, Bokkie’s drum was already strapped to the seat, but I managed to get another on the front row of the East stand. I had a cracking view all afternoon. 

Sarries started brightly enough with an early penalty as they spent most of the early period around theCardiff10 yard line. Ben Spencer’s excellent kicking sawCardiffpushed back every time they made progress. However, Sarries seemed intent on givingCardiffplenty of ball as there were a number of knock-ons and a couple of forward passes. The line-out wasn’t working with its normal efficiency either; Cardiff were poaching the odd one or two. Sarries were generally looking like a side that hadn’t played together for a while: but that wasn’t surprising. There was one debutant starting  (an England u18 player so another EQP stat improvement) and 3 long-tem injury returns. The rest were a mixture of starters and subs from the last few weeks and academy players coming back.

They did seem to be some penetration in the backs as Powell and Maddock were looking sharp. There was a period of sustained pressure in the 22 (which led to a missed penalty), but Cardiff seemed to have it under control. Just after the penalty, Sarries had a movement out wide and a couple of crisp passes put the debutant Itoje through; unfortunately it was called back for a forward pass. Soon after Cardiff seemed to start getting into the game and got a penalty for not rolling away. Sarries fabled defence didn’t seem to be working either; it certainly wasn’t as invasive and a couple of tackles were missed. Cardiff managed to work a good 2-on-1, but Goode was excellent at forcing the pass and then tackling the winger into touch. The Cardiff #8 Copeland was a real handful, making room every time he had the ball. With a play forcing a line-out in the Sarries 22, Cardiff secured the ball and Copeland crashed over without too much difficulty. The wide conversion was missed.

Then came a rather strange moment; a long kick from Spencer was spilled by the Cardiff flanker and the ball bounced straight into the clutches of Short. With only a flanker to beat, a try seemed on the cards, when the whistle went for a Sarries scrum. (Advantage please, Sir) From the scrum Sarries drove forward to secure the second penalty and a 6-8 half-time scoreline. Short did seem slightly annoyed at the advantage as the last play saw him pick up and throw the Cardiff winger on Maddock’s side into touch.

Half-time saw no dancing girls, and two balls caught by the supporter. Best bit was the 12 yard walk down the stairs to a beer stall. The second half was pretty quiet until the substitutions started; Goode, Botha and George came off together. Sarries did look as they were controlling the game to an extent, but Cardiff were turning over quite a few rucks and were pretty good at counter-attacking when they did. Sarries were able to get a penalty to take the lead, but shortly afterwards should have been punished. Copeland worked himself into space on the Sarries 22 and should have put the winger away, but the pass went straight into touch.

Sarries were still driving forward, to not much avail it should be said, but Mordt and Spencer were able to keep field position with some good deep kicks. After another bit of sustained Sarries possession, there was a yellow card for Cardiff and I think it was from this that Sarries extended their lead to 4 points. Shortly afterwards, though, Sweeney managed to kick a long penalty to make it a 1 point game again.          

Sarries were making the extra man count with some decent attacking and shortly afterwards there was another yellow card for deliberate killing the ball. WithCardiffdown to 13 men they were struggling to keep Sarries out and finally from a sustained attack the ball was switched the other way and with a clear overlap, Short ran in for the first Sarries Try at Allianz. Mordt converted to ensure Cardiff didn’t even get a losing bonus point. With Irish picking up a bonus-point win at home, the LV cup is probably out of our reach now. We would need a bonus-point away atWorcesternext week, which is not something that’s happened often.

All in all a reasonable Sarries performance, but they need to play a lot better than that against Irish, Exeter and Tiggers in the Premiership. Had Cardiff been a bit more effective at finishing, they could have scored 2 more tries which would have been difficult to overcome. I thought most of the players who were returning had decent performances (nice to see Melky back after that terrible injury). They say it’s a sign of a good side that then win when not playing too well and so it was. Maro Itoje and Jack Wilson seemed to look useful on their first performances and promise good for the future. Sheriff did go off with what looked like an injury, but from reports it seemed it was ok,

PS to DG, did you notice the obligatory chick-lit reference in the first paragraph?

Saracens: Alex Goode; Joe Maddock, Duncan Taylor, Adam Powell, James Short; Nils Mordt (capt), Ben Spencer; Nick Auterac, Jamie George, Carlos Nieto, Eoin Sheriff, Mouritz Botha, Maro Itoje, Tom Jubb, Nick Fenton-Wells.

Replacements: John Smit, Darren Fearn, Petrus du Plessis, Alistair Hargreaves, Justin Melck, Ali Price, Sam Stanley, Jack Wilson.

Cardiff Blues: Jason Tovey; Owen Williams, Gavin Evans (capt), Dafydd Hewitt; Ceri Sweeney, Lewis Jones; Sam Hobbs, Kristian Dacey, Benoit Bourrust, Michael Paterson, Macauley Cook, Luke Hamilton, Robin Copeland, Rory Watts-Jones.

Replacements: Rhys Williams, Nathan Trevett, Taufa'ao Filise, Cory Hill, Thomas Young, Alex Walker, Gareth Davies, Tom Williams.