Serious at Sarries? - Saracens Preview

By BrianC
October 5 2005

Next Sunday at Vicarage Road we play our second Powergen Cup game of this season against Saracens. After defeats last weekend both teams are hanging onto the tournament by a thread so this now begs the question of how seriously they will take the game.

Saracens went down 37-20 in Cardiff, by all accounts it was a dismal performance. There are now rumours that a player revolt is gathering pace and that a shake up in the coaching staff is imminent. With only one win from five games so far this season these are worrying times in Watford. Their difficulty does not appear to be one of scoring, they have picked up three try bonus points so far. Rather it seems to stem from a porous defense which is shipping in more points than they are able to score.

We lost 26-30 at the Madejski last Sunday. Despite this defeat most of the supporters are very upbeat. There is no shame in losing by such a narrow margin to Wasps. The style of rugby we are playing is starting to look attractive. We are scoring tries again. In our new fly half Riki Flutey we may well have the signing of the season. Things are coming together.

Last season we beat Saracens all three times we played. Our 20-3 victory in the GP at the Madejski in October was our most comfortable of last season, even then we only drew away in the last minutes of the game. In February Tofty kicked them out in the quarter final of the cup 15-21 at Vicarage Road. Our away GP victory, 12-25 including our one and only try bonus point of last season, was arguably our single most important result of the troubled 04/05 season. It bought us the breathing space to eventually stay up despite a string of subsequent poor results. We won only one of the subsequent six games.

This Sunday can we expect London Irish to take the opportunity to rest some key players? My guess is yes, particularly if Wasps beat Cardiff on Friday night. They will use the opportunity to give a few of those players who have been knocking on the door of the first team a run out. With Saracens it is a different story. The pressure to come up with results is immense. They may well field a full strength side in the hope that they can beat us and put themselves in with an outside chance of qualification by beating Wasps in December.

If this is the case beating Sarries will be a big call. I don't expect us to do so, as long as we put up a spirited fight I'll be happy.