SARACENS v CONNACHT: please post match-related comments here

By The Saracens
December 14 2023

After their South African adventures, the team are back home for Saturday’s encounter with Connacht. If we learnt anything on Saturday, it was that this pool is going to be a tough one. Arguably Connacht are the weakest of the 4 teams Sarries face which in itself presents a selection dilemma. With a visit to Sale next weekend in the Premiership, Mark McCall might be tempted to rest a couple of players for Saturday but Sarries HAVE to take 5 points from this home tie and ideally rack up a few tries if they are to have any hope of going deep into this competition.

Connacht struggled in round 1, home to Bordeaux Begles, losing 41-5 so they will be looking to try and kick-start their European journey against Sarries. (And here I digress – I remember very fondly our trip to Galway back in 2013. Sarries were lucky to snatch a 23-17 victory and we spent a very happy day wandering around the Gaeltacht, trying to find Alcock and Brown’s landing site, going down a silver mine, going to a sheep auction and eating an amazing seafood lunch in Clifden. The bizarre structure of this competition means we are denied a repeat).

Connacht have always been the “poor man” of Irish rugby. Only 8% of the population live in the catchment area which significantly reduces their player base. In the past, the other provinces were favoured over Connacht (until 2004 Connacht were entered into the Challenge Cup regardless of where they finished in the championship!). Connacht qualified for the Heineken Cup for 3 seasons between 2011 and 2014 (due to Leinster winning the title and thus freeing up another Irish place). It wasn’t until 2016 that Connacht qualified in their own right.

This season Connacht sit 8^th in the URC – but are the lowest placed of the 4 Irish provinces. They have, however, won 4 of their 7 games: against Ospreys (H) Glasgow (H) Ulster (H) & Hollywoodbet Sharks (A) but lost to Edinburgh (A) Bulls (A) Leinster (h): Bulls and Leinster their last 2 URC games.

Connacht also have injury problems and will be without Mack Hansen, Tiernan O’Halloran, Oisin Dowling, Santiago Cordero, Oisin McCormack & Colm Reilly. That being said, Connacht still have some pretty decent players in their squad most notably Bundee Aki but also half backs JJ Hanrahan & Caolin Blade. However many of their players have come through their development system.

The recent Injury update from Sarries wasn’t especially encouraging with news that Loz, Mawi, Hunter-Hill, Riccioni, Adams-Hale and Willis are all out for 3 or more months although Segun is fit to return as is Ollie Hoskins and Nick Isiekwe isn’t too far away and Ben Earl should be back “within the next month”. A further boost was the over-turning of Billy’s red card which does at least ease the potential back row problems a bit.

Mark McCall said “We’ve got a playing group who don’t want to make any excuses. I genuinely think we’re going to see a different team on Saturday. You can’t just hope that improvement is going to happen, you have to make it happen and prepare accordingly. There’s a feeling around the group that there will be a huge improvement this weekend.” If he’s speaking literally that could mean some new faces: I wouldn’t be surprised to see Segun given a run out to add a bit of pace to our back line. Poor old Tompkins has been “advertising” the game so I guess that means he’ll start again. I would like to see Ollie Hartley get a start alongside him with Daly moving to fullback and Lewi and Parton on the wings & Segun on the bench. Faz and Van Zyl should continue at half backs. I’d be tempted to give Theo Dan a start maybe alongside Mulipola and Clarey with Itoje and McFarland at lock (not that they’ve really gelled yet) and Christie, Gonzales and Billy in the back row.

It's a 1pm start – not ideal in the lead-up to Christmas but TV is god. The actual “god” (aka as the referee) is Luc Ramos from France assisted by an all French team: Jeremy Rozier and Thomas Chereque on the lines and Patrick Dellac in the TMO box. Let’s hope we fare better than we did last week!. 5 points is the absolute minimum we need but it would also be good to see the team play well. The forecast is good – dry, sunny spells, light winds. Not quite Pretoria but not bad for the 3^rd weekend in December. Let’s all get behind the team and roar them home.

SARACENS v CONNACHT: please post match-related comments here

Posted by: TheSaracens.com (IP Logged)

Date: 14/12/2023 14:04

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023:12:27:19:31:43 by Darraghgirl.