SARRIES' FRAILTIES ON SHOW AGAIN: IRISH TAKE ADVANTAGE

A regular event in the Sarries squad this season has been the gift of points, even a game, to the opposition, as the direct result of petulant, off-the ball, after the whistle, penalties.

Did Sarries lose at Leicester because of a contentious decision by the referee? Perhaps they lost because of an earlier petulant push by a Sarries player that gave Tigers three easy points.  Tigers winning margin? One point.

Did Billy achieve anything when his back-chat during the Falcons game gave them a penalty reversal and an easy three points? At least Sarries won that one.

Yesterday, early on, back-chat from Mako and Jackson Wray turned an innocuous penalty to Irish, in the latter’s half, into an easy three points. Final result 34-34.

So far, this season, Sarries have given five or six table points to opposition sides as a direct result of their off-the-ball behaviour.  As a result, we are second, not top.  Enough Already!

I am not even going to try to fathom out what went wrong yesterday.  At half-time, playing into a horrible wind Sarries are 13-3 ahead and have a man advantage, a second-row player, Adam Coleman, having put in a head-high tackle on Jackson Wray, which led to a red card and no argument about its justification.  At fifty minutes, Sarries are cruising home, 34-8, and Irish hanging on as best they can. The consensus around me is that Irish face a long and possibly humiliating thirty minutes before they can return home. 

Every now and then we see collapse of the famed Sarries mantra of work-rate, humility and discipline, plus whatever the fourth one may be.  Yesterday, Sarries decided that the game was won, the bonus point secured.  Irish needed four converted tries to win, and they had shown little evidence of that being achievable.  One Irish try thus far is scarcely a platform for anything sensational. The mindset changes: humility becomes hubris, work-rate becomes optional and the discipline that underpins success disappears altogether.

Sarries backs have forgotten that rugby is a team game.  All too often, players try to gain the glory of a hard-work try when the simpler option of passing to a player with a free run for the line is available.  We have seen it before this season, and saw it again yesterday.  Wolfpack defence requires the discipline and work-rate that every wolf works as part of the whole, fast and accurate.  During the dreadful last thirty minutes yesterday we saw, more than once, successions of phases of Irish possession when every single Irish carrier made ground over the gain line.  Sarries were simply not engaging, not closing down runners and their options, fading out of tackles.

And suddenly, the Irish scent the wind of complacency from the Sarries players.   Try, try, try, in ten minutes, 34-8 has become 34-27 and Sarries are desperately defending to prevent a fifth.  Fourteen-man Irish are playing like men possessed, Sarries are simply in a panic.  The wolf-hounds have clearly the better of the wolf-pack.  On 80 minutes, the Irish are on the Sarries line, pressing for a last try.  Sarries defend and defend, for four interminable minutes, but Irish discipline is spot-on, desire is exactly matched by execution, and after a couple more defensive penalties the visitors are over for a 34-32 score-line.  A nerve-jangling conversion from wide out, and the game is done.  Sarries 34 - London Irish 34.

The scene on the pitch is now a true reflection of what has gone before.  London Irish players celebrate exuberantly; they go home with three table points from a game which promised nothing.  Sarries look like men crushed; they have played unbelievably poorly for the last thirty minutes, are in doubt about that.  The ‘fish report is headlined “Saracens men had to settle for honours even…”.  Delusional, and it reminds me of what the fourth Sarries mantra word is: honesty.

Exactly eight months ago to the day, Sarries went to Cornwall and lost an eminently winnable game.  Afterwards, they picked themselves up, and rest of the ‘Championship Season’ is history.  For the next two weeks, Sarries have opportunities to re-set before the Gallagher Premiership will resume.  Harlequins travel to the Stonex, eager to turn Sarries over after the recent defeat at the Stoop, and Sarries then travel to Brentford, re-matched against London Irish, desperate to show that yesterday was a one-off, an alignment of the stars that will not happen again. 

As things stand, I think it perfectly possible that Sarries could lose both games, and then have to resume Premiership duties against a very impressive Sale Sharks outfit. 

Today, Sarries is a badly-wounded squad.  The leadership group on the field depends on three players who were not present yesterday, and who won’t be there for the next two games either.  The much-vaunted strength in depth was sadly missing, and Mark McCall has a big hill to climb.  At least we can have confidence that if an immediate recovery can be achieved, MMC is the most likely person to oversee it.  He might usefully begin by taking the squad onto the pitch and telling each, in turn, to recite the four principles of the Sarries ethos, writ large above the East stand.

Saracens: Obatoyinbo; Lewington, Lozowski, Taylor, Segun; Goode (co-capt), Van Zyl; Mako Vunipola, Woolstencroft, Clarey, Isiekwe, Swinson, Christie, Wray (co-capt), Earl.

Replacements: Lewis, Barrington, Wainwright, McFarland, Reffell, Davies, Morris, Maitland.

London Irish: Parton; Rowe, Hepetema, van Rensburg, Hassell-Collins; Jackson, Phipps; Goodrick-Clarke, Creevy, van der Merwe, Coleman, Simmons, Nott, Pearson, Rogerson (capt).

Replacements: Willemse, Dell, Hoskins, Mafi, Curtis-Harris, White, Jennings, Williams.

Sent off: Coleman (22 mins).

Saracens: Tries – Woolstencroft, Segun (2) Earl, M Vunipola; Conv: Lozowski (3); Pen: Lozowski

London Irish: Tries – Rowe (3), Phipps, Rogerson; Conv: Jennings (3); Pen: Jennings

Referee: Ian Tempest (RFU).