Saracens win a battle, but the crusade continues!

Well that was a pretty poor performance. No heart, no commitment and no spontaneity. But enough about the man on the microphone, how did the rugby team do? 

Much better is the immediate answer. A lot better than some people thought they would. It was a major achievement restricting them to the one try, and whether they should have been awarded that is arguable. However, the sad fact is that you cannot play a team of this quality with fourteen men for a quarter of the game and expect to win. Two yellow cards to Mo and Joe cost us, not in points, but in how we had to readjust our play.

And it all started so well. Saracens turned out dressed in a blue variation of “Where’s Wally”. Steve Borthwick fully deserved being singled out for his 250^th appearance, while Tom Williams celebrated 200 appearances.

The game started brightly with Harlequins pressing Saracens outside their 22. A hand by Burger in the ruck was spotted by Martin Fox, Nick Evans stepped up and bisected the posts nicely. Harlequins 3 Saracens 0.

Saracens nearly came back immediately as Harlequins fielded a pretty standard restart from Owen Farrell (and weren’t his restarts great?), Brown took it comfortably, Evans took a moment too long and Wigglesworth charged the ball down but was inexplicably unable to lay a finger on it as it bounced past him over the dead ball line. Phew!

This was pretty soon followed by a monster of a tackle from Ugo Monye on Chris Wyles. Lined him up and then just knocked him over just as the ball arrived. Great to watch!

The crowd was starting to make itself known at this point. I thought the support for the team was really impressive all day long. By comparison, and it may have been because of my position in the West Stand, didn’t really hear any concerted support for Saracens.

There followed the first scrum of the game to Saracens. After the obligatory reset as Mako Vunipola hinged, the second time it didn’t even get that far before being reset, the third time the scrum twisted, Wigglesworth fed the second row right in front of the referee but at least we were spared further wait.

Harlequins then stole the ball in the ruck, the ball came out to Monye, he skinned Ashton, cleverly kicked ahead and was then knocked over by Goode stepping into Ugo’s line of running. Alex Goode picked up a yellow card for that. Nick Evans booted the ball over and Harlequins were 6-0 up.

Following a good rolling maul from Harlequins, Easter broke off the maul without support and was dragged down. Martin Fox gave him a nanosecond to release the ball and then blew for a penalty. Compare and contrast with how he refereed the same event in the second half when it was Saracens holding on! Anyway, Farrell stepped up and booted a lovely 40+m kick. So Harlequins 6 Saracens 3.

Some exciting play between the two 22s followed until Jacques Burger was penalised for tackling the man without the ball. Another long pot for Nick Evans, but he made it look easy as the ball curled between the posts and Harlequins were 9-3 up.

 A few minutes later, it all went pear shaped. Kelly Brown took a short line out, dashed between some fast asleep Harlequins defenders and was over the line. Martin Fox referred it to the TMO. Meanwhile handbags kicked off among the forwards. Saracens went back past the halfway line; they were that confident they’d scored. The replay showed Tom Williams had pulled off a sensational piece of defence holding the ball up. After a review by the TMO, Martin Fox yellow carded Mo for pulling the hair of Jacques Burger. Not a good time to do this, given it was five minutes to half time.

George Robson pulled down the subsequent maul and Farrell kicked the penalty to make it 9-6. Harlequins won the restart, forced a turnover and Saracens gave away the penalty. Nick Evans slotted the shot and it was 12-6. On the stroke of half time, Saracens passed it forward, Strettle dropped it and the score was 12-6 at the break.

With Mo back on the pitch and Martin Fox seemingly taking against our scrum, Saracens got a penalty about 40m out. Farrell tried to steal a couple of yards and was pulled up on it. With the crowd shouting “cheat” he seemed to indicate to Fox it would make no difference, did the old head on one side routine and...kicked the ball wide.

Two minutes later a nicely taken try by Ashton. I’ve watched the replay over and over and I cannot swear Farrell’s hands are backwards, they always look forward to me. Immediately after throwing, he flips his hands to point backwards...but that’s not the definition is it? There were two passes before the try, I think the ref may have confused the TMO to check Farrell to Wyles to Ashton , rather than the obvious forward pass between Farrell and Strettle that happened moments earlier.  Anyway, nicely taken kick and Harlequins 12 – Saracens 13.

Immediately their noses were in front Saracens went into their “well you try and play from your 22” mode. A few minutes later Saracens set up a wonderful rolling maul. Harlequins couldn’t decide whether to put players in or not and by the time Marler pulled it down it was yellow card area. Marler off for 10 minutes on the 53 minute mark.

Harlequins did well to prevent Saracens scoring another try in the next ten minutes. They had to give away a penalty immediately. James Johnston came on to a few boos but quite a lot of cheers as well. Saracens now were 12-16 up.

A little later we suddenly decided that, despite Saracens rush defence, long cut out passes were the order of the day. Tom Williams receiving ball and Strettle simultaneously may have disagreed. He was slightly isolated, Sarries piled over and it was another penalty for holding on. Great kick by Farrell and we were looking at a worrying 12-19.

After the restart we stole the ball, passed it out, Botica tapped it on, we were so lucky Strettle didn’t intercept it. A bit later we were penalised for coming in at the side, another 3 points to Saracens and even the losing bonus point had disappeared from view.  12-22 now.

A great run by Nick Evans, great kick from Dickson, great follow up by Ugo and a line out on the Saracens 5 metre line. Bashed our heads against the Saracens brick wall and eventually Mako Vunipola caught Mo without support. Story of the second half!

Eventually Harlequins managed to force a penalty about 35m out. The losing bonus point was in sight, the Stoop went silent, everyone held their breath as... initially the kick looked good. Suddenly it took on banana attributes and bounced back off the post, Saracens cleared and that was the last scoring chance for Harlequins.

After the game, Conor said

They [Saracens] are physically very powerful and were the better side on the day. We played well in the first half, but in the second half we just didn't hold on to the ball for any length of time.

Saracens have huge strength in depth and probably have most of their key players fit. Everyone knows they are an excellent team and will take some stopping, but Northampton went six from six at the start of last season. Things change drastically in the season.

We're disappointed to lose at home, but it's important the players don't feel sorry for themselves. We're fine and I'm very comfortable with the group of players we have.