BATH V SARRIES #2 Europe post match related comments here

By TheSaracens.com
March 30 2026

Our season hangs by a single thread, a rather frayed thread that looks ever thinner as the days go by. We have one last shot at getting something out of this season. Ok not much of a shot but it’s there. Let’s remind ourselves of the pool stages: a good home five pointer against Clermont, a narrow away defeat to Sharks (another game we could have won), a fabulous home win over Toulouse than a hammering away at Glasgow. All this has left us with Everest to climb rather than the gentler slopes of Scafell Pike if we are to reach Bilbao in May (I would hold off booking your tickets for a week or 2!). On Saturday at 3pm (yes, a prime slot for once) we visit Bath at the Rec. Should a miracle happen and we progress, we would end up in some sort of time loop, probably away to Northampton! Should another miracle happen, we’d probably face a semifinal in France against Bordeaux or Toulouse with either Leinster or Glasgow waiting for us in Spain. Easy peasey!

I really hope we don’t go back to The Rec with the same-old same-old squad who have shown time and again this season that they don’t have what it takes. Einstein might (or might not) have said “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result”.

If you google “repeating the same mistake” it comes up with some interesting things:-

“Humans are not naturally rational, even though we would like to believe that we are. Information overload is exhausting and confusing, so we filter out the noise. We only see parts of the world. We tend to notice things that are repeating, whether there are any patterns or not, and we tend to preserve memory by generalizing and resorting to type. We also draw conclusions from sparse data and use cognitive shortcuts to create a version of reality that we implicitly want to believe in. This creates a reduced stream of incoming information, which helps us connect dots and fill in gaps with stuff we already know. This is called confirmation bias – our tendency to confirm what we already believe in, rather than shift our mindset to incorporate new information and ideas.”

“Even when we think carefully and slowly, our brains have a bias towards the information and templates we had used in the past, regardless of whether these resulted in errors.”

“The more we repeat the same tasks, the more likely we are to traverse the mistake pathway, until it becomes so deeply embedded that it becomes a set of permanent cognitive shortcuts in our brains.”

I really, really rate Mark McCall but he doesn’t look like he’s enjoying the job anymore and without his full-on drive and knowledge behind everything, I fear the rest of the coaching staff are rudderless.

Ominously Smally said “I’m actually really proud of the performance given what happened against Bath….It’s gutting to lose it at the end, but we can work with that and go away dead proud of how we played. You want to be part of something good, as in something you can work with, something you can see building, and we haven’t felt that for a bit….I know there’s something good to build on after this and if we go like that for the next eight weeks, we’ll actually enjoy it regardless. We’ve got a big game next weekend against Bath in Europe to throw ourselves into, nothing to lose, so I think that’s where we’ll look at it.”

Doesn’t sound to me like he’s thinking of a revolution!

But Smally said it, we really have nothing to lose.

So do we send the lot that got stuffed at the Rec a couple of weeks ago or let a some of our youngsters spread their wings. I’m not for one minute suggesting we send a development squad but make a few bold choices.

Ok so I will:-

Front row picks itself – Carre, Dan and Street

Locks: Maro and Sodeke

Back row: JMG and Earl if either is fit, plus Willis, if not McFarland and Michelow

Half backs: Charlie and Burke

Centres: Loz and Hartley

Wings: Noah and Tobias

FB: Jack Bracken

We’re highly likely to lose but let’s give it a go, let’s rekindle those old Sarries’ values as ed Griffiths used to say: “gather talented people together, treat them unbelievably well and in return they try unbelievably hard.” I’ll settle for that.

We will be in the hands of Nika Amahukeli, generally one of the more reliable "sirs" so lets hope it's settled by the players not the officials.

BATH V SARRIES #2 Europe post match related comments here

Posted by: TheSaracens.com (IP Logged)

Date: 30/03/2026 18:30

[sup][/sup]Threads merged to prevent duplication

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2026:04:21:17:41:06 by Darraghgirl.

Team for Bath

Posted by: PaulHerox (IP Logged)

Date: 30/03/2026 18:16

McCalls comments after the game which were variations on showed up well, did great to come back after going 14 down and could have won, proud of the performance make me feel we will see basically the same team as the last two weeks.
If progression and improvement is linear that may be enough but I think we need a few changes.

For me as blank sheet is simply not going to happen I'd make few changes but with big impact.
Obviously they would compromise other areas of the game but that is the balance.

Burke to FullBack. Adds to our attacking game and defensive game. Moves to 10 at 50 unless Farrell is having a Worldy.
I'm still trying to work this combination out but I want Willis on for 80 unless injured, Wilson into the 23 and Earl at 8 as much as possible. One option is start Itoje/Wilson with McFarland/Earl and Willis. The other is bolder and would be starting Willis at TightHead lock where he stepped in a few times and did well and still had an impact in the loose. Then have a backrow of McFarland, Onyeama-Christie and Earl with Wilson to come on from the bench.
Either Malins or Daly on the bench with Van-Zyl and one of Caluori or J Bracken. A friend at the game said Bracken had the better game on the weekend.

The compromises with Burke at FullBack are mainly kicking which is not an inconsiderable one. The other changes compromise our lineout to a degree.

I guess my question is will more of the same deliver a different result? It could.
Equally maybe small changes with potentially big impacts and to be honest they could be negative as easily as positive could do it.

What team would you like to see and what team do you think we might realistically see. What changes would you make to address specific issues we had v Bath.