Saracens ride on in Coventry

I splashed out today, buying streaming access to the ETF / Doncaster Knights game as well as the Coventry / Sarries game.  In the end I got two and a half for the price of two, as I shall explain. 

The first game was a journey of changing expectations, from the point of view of the Sarries supporter. At 0 -10 within ten minutes, and Doncaster showing commitment, some considerable skill and evidence of some equally good coaching, dared one to imagine a wholly-unexpected turnover result that would make the Sarries job a great deal easier later in the day? ETF then clawed their way into the game, but it seemed for a long period that a try bonus point would be beyond them. Then with the TBP secured, it was a matter of wondering whether Doncaster could restrict ETF to a score that would give Sarries a reasonable shot at ending the regular season ahead on points difference. The weather was strangely volatile, and at one stage the commentators noted that whilst play took place at one end in rain, the other was bathed in sunshine.

ETF were, in the end, too strong for Doncaster, but nonetheless, the latter can have travelled home with the feeling that their loss was by no means a heavy defeat, and that they have demonstrated that Yorkshire may have a Premiership club again, albeit not just yet. ETF will certainly have left the pitch at the end of this, their last regular season game, knowing that the win, 38 – 15, albeit with a TBP, leaves them perilously close to finishing second in the league, if only Sarries can wind in the points difference, over 70 in ETF’s favour and gain both games as wins with a TBP.

We then had to switch stream to the main game, as it certainly was for Sarries and their supporters. Before the game, Coventry’s DoR made the point that we have heard so often this year: for most of their squad, this feels like the biggest game in which they will ever play, and while expectations are realistic, the players are very fired up for the occasion. Richard Barrington put it eloquently last week: “When I played once against the All Blacks, I wanted my opposite number to remember my name afterwards.” As for every other club, the occasion was to be bitter-sweet for another reason, in that on a day when they could have sold every ticket ten times over, only a couple of thousand were able to buy one, depriving their supporters of seeing some of the genuine stars of world rugby at their club.

The first two halves of the game were surreal. Sarries were troubling the scorer within the first minute, again by the tenth, and although Doncaster were skilled and well-drilled, there is a reason why the outcome never looked in doubt. Sarries remain capable of challenging, and usually beating, any club side, and many international ones, whilst Doncaster are not even close to the levels of skill, fitness, experience and street-wisdom that Sarries had on display.

Why do I call this part of the game as the ‘first two halves’? There was the game I was watching, a committed but out-classed effort on the field, and the game whose commentary I was hearing. They were so different that surreal is the only way to describe the dissimilarity between sight and sound. About 20 minutes into the game, the commentator was reduced to the thought that if only Sarries were not scoring on pretty much every visit to the Doncaster red zone, the latter would be holding their own.

It is difficult to work out who scored what and when, but the first try, in the first minute, demonstrated the perils of kicking to Billy and giving him room to move. The distraction of seeing him ball in hand drew in too much attention from the follow-up runners, and getting the ball to Alex Lewington gave the chance to make an excellent run through a very chaotic Coventry defence, before handing the easiest of run-ins to Elliot Daly. The second within minutes, was a classic piece of driven maul from a line-out, where Jamie was able to mole over in his usual manner on such occasions. Owen had missed the first, wide-out conversion, having to deal with an angled bluster of wind coming in over his right shoulder, but made no mistake with the second, kicking across the wind now helping to angle the ball exactly as required.

For about 20 minutes, much of it spent by Coventry trying to make something of prolonged pressure on the Sarries line, to no avail, the game was interesting only in that by sheer endeavour, the Coventry players were making Sarries look a bit ordinary and a bit frustrated. Owen seemed to be on less than best friend terms with Hamish Smales, and needed to avoid the indignity of getting his reputation for lack of referee empathy yet further enhanced.

A couple of tries, at around the beginning of the second 20 minutes, brought the TBP. One followed a threatened drive-over by Billy, who off-loaded to Sean Reffell to burst through under the posts from about six metres, the other was a more virtuouso performance by juggling, dancing feet Eliot.  Coventry prop Toby Trinder was taking a well-earned turn on the naughty step as these tries came in.

With a fifth try by half-time, a messy exchange under the posts followed by a burst through just to the right by Nick Tompkins, and with Owen on song with the boot, and Sarries went in for the break 33-0 to the good.

As the second half began, my only questions were whether, in my shaky mental arithmetic, Sarries could score another 42 points and concede none, to give them a points difference advantage over Ealing.  Coventry must tire well before the last quarter and six converted tries would do the trick.

It would be kinder not to mention the apparent fact that as the 60 minute mark came, and Sarries began to ring the changes, the replacements simply carried on where the starters had taken the game. The replacement front row were thoroughly effective, and indeed by the end their dominance was reaching levels that lead the nervous spectator to wonder about the physical risks attached to being running over by a sixteen-wheel lorry. Four tries were scored in the first 30 minutes of this period, but the last ten gavve time two more, one for Eliot’s hat-trick. So, we had the eleven tries that were needed, and nine had been converted. The traditionally blue-kitted Coventry side has tried their absolute best but had not scored. Sarries return home with 73 unanswered points, and the calculators show that tonight ETF sit top of the table, played 10, won 9, points difference 344. Sarries sit second, played 9, won 8, points difference 343.

Thoughts turn to the last regular season games. ETF have payed out their season, Hartpury visit Stonex next Saturday. Will MMC risk resting front-line players, or will he want them to have almost certainty of a win, plus mileage for the probable squad to turn out in the two play-off games?

Sarries: 15 Alex Goode, 14 Alex Lewington, 13 Elliot Daly, 12 Nick Tompkins, 11 Sean Maitland, 10 Owen Farrell ©, 9 Aled Davies 1 Mako Vunipola, 2 Jamie George, 3 Alec Clarey, 4 Maro Itoje, 5 Tim Swinson 6 Jackson Wray, 7 Sean Reffell, 8 Billy Vunipola

Replacements: 16 Tom Woolstencroft, 17 Ralph Adams-Hale, 18 Josh Ibuanokpe, 19 Callum Hunter-Hill, 20 Andy Christie, 21 Tom Whiteley, 22 Dom Morris, 23 Rotimi Segun

Coventry: 15 Louis Brown; 14 Rob Stevenson, 13 Will Butt, 12 Will Owen, 11 Sam Aspland-Robinson; 10 Tony Fenner, 9 Joe Snow; 1 Toby Trinder, 2 Jordon Poole, 3 Phil Boulton, 4 Nile Dacres, 5 Adam Peters, 6 Sam Lewis, 7 Ben Nutley, 8 Ryan Burrows (capt) 16 Sam McNulty, 17 Luc Jeannot, 18 Alex Gibson, 19 Alex Woolford, 20 Jack Ram, 21 Pete White, 22 Evan Mitchell, 23 Rob Knox   (I believe that Coventry made a late change to this named team, but was unable to identify the switched players’ names.)

Referee: Hamish Smales ARs: Alex Thomas & Simon Adams