Saracens Start at Home with a 5-pointer

By Jeremy O'Gorman
September 13 2005

Back to Vicarage Road after the heady heights of Twickenham. There was a good turnout at the game today, not just in the crowd; with Richard Hill and Bart sitting in the dugout as well as all those who missed out on selection.

I was a little apprehensive approaching the start; my son was very confident but I had noticed that Leeds’ forwards had put the Irish under pressure last week. How wrong can you be.

A fairly straightforward start, with a long kick to the Leeds 22; after a short passage of play a penalty to Sarries. Jackson’s kick not quite finding the range and Leeds restarted long.

Skirving, who had another excellent all round game, made a good drive over one defender, round another and into a third before slipping a pass to Scarborough. With a simple burst he was through the line. A good pass found Castaignede and Thomas touched down by the posts. Crowd erupts and Glen adds the simple conversion.

The Sarries forwards then started to turn the screw on Leeds in the scrum just as they did against Wasps last week. Flying lessons were in order for the Leeds front row and they were even having difficulty winning their own ball. However, Leeds were more successful in the line-out, with Cairns failing to find his targets and Sarries normal minimal contesting giving the Tykes an even share of the ball.

Jackson kicked two and Ross one penalty to leave the score at 13-3 before a period of sustained Sarries pressure led to a great try. A great run into the line by Scarborough created an overlap on the left and Vaikona was nearly through, but a dropped pass let Leeds off the hook. They cleared their lines, but a long period of Sarries driving, first right, then left, then back to the right with forwards and backs interacting; Kris Chesney feeding Kevin Sorrell who ran round under the posts, Jackson converting.

Leeds then managed to put together a period of strong pressure with a couple of bits of magic by Justin Marshall; firstly a lovely reverse pass and a dummy and dart to the line. He was held up and from the resulting scrum Sarries exerted enough pressure to win the ball.

It’s at periods like this I love sitting next to the dugout, so Dimes comments can be heard. The first was to the Leeds reserve lock coming back after a little running up and down. “Don’t go on and get in that scrum lad – you will get eaten alive”. Laughter from the Sarries bench, scowls from Leeds.

Sarries then drove back up to halfway, and with only seconds left on the new countdown clock, Dan Scarborough made his best run of the match, bursting through on a pass at a great angle, between two players before sidestepping past Balshaw. Jackson added the conversion.

Discussing our first half performance with other season ticket holders at half-time, I do think we were treated to the best first-half performances I think I have seen from Saracens. I have seen better second-half displays, but you know how badly we normally start. There were a couple of dodgy areas with the line-out and kick-off returns, but all in all a sterling performance.

I didn’t think much of the half-time entertainment; where were the girls in spandex.

The second half seemed to follow off pretty well where the first finished, with the forwards polishing off their first-half dominance. The line-out and rolling maul were both working to full effect, firstly in midfield and from the resultant penalty rolling over in the corner.

Four tries; all converted the bonus points secured at 34-3. The perfect platform for a drubbing, but then Sarries seemed to go off the boil. A few over-elaborate moves and some mishandling in the drizzly conditions allowed Leeds back in the game. The normal plethora of substitutions caused more issues. But for all the Sarries mistakes, Leeds did not seems to be causing any great problems. Another period of sustained attacking seemed to be making Sarries defence stronger, with Leeds running out of options.

Dimes retort number 2: A Leeds lineout in front of the dugout, just before Marshall’s substitution. He was breathing heavily before Dimes booms out: “Welcome to the Premiership Justin”

The game degenerated into stalemate, before a Jackson chip to probably the only player on the opposition tall enough to intercept it saw the second-row Chris Murphy pin back his ears and score.

Final score 34-16.

Plus points; our back row, Dan Scarborough back to form. Solid kicking from Jackson, total domination in the scrum and Byrne threw in well when he came on.

SCORERS: Saracens: Tries: Castaignède (5min), Sorrell (34), Scarbrough (40+3), Cairns (53). Conversions: Jackson 4. Penalty goals: Jackson 2 (12, 25). Leeds Tykes: Try: Murphy (76). Conversion: De Marigny. Penalty goal: Ross (20). Dropped goal: Balshaw (57).

SCORING SEQUENCE (Saracens first): 7-0, 10-0, 10-3, 13-3, 20-3, 27-3 (half-time), 27-6, 34-6, 34-9, 34-16.

SARACENS: D Scarbrough; R Haughton, T Castaignède (rep: D Harris, 64), K Sorrell, T Vaikona (rep: B J Russell, 46); G Jackson, A Dickens (rep: K Bracken, 64); K Yates (rep: N Lloyd, 35), M Cairns (rep: S Byrne, 54), C Visagie (rep: Yates, 54), K Chesney (rep: S Raiwalui, 36), H Vyvyan, A Sanderson (rep: T Randell, 64), D Seymour, B Skirving.

LEEDS TYKES: I Balshaw; A Snyman, C Jones, R De Marigny, D Doherty (rep: T Stimpson, 77); G Ross (rep: T Biggs, 41), J Marshall (rep: D Care, 73); J Isaacson (rep: M Cusack, 41), R Rawlinson (rep: G Bulloch, 41), G Kerr, S Hooper (rep: C Murphy, 64), T Palmer, S Morgan, N Thomas (rep: R Parks, 41), J Dunbar.

Referee: A Spreadbury.

Attendance: 6,190.