Beleaguered Saracens boss Mark McCall has admitted his struggling team need fighters next weekend after their latest PREM Rugby hammering away to Bath.
It was December 2024 when the Londoners were battered 68-10 at The Rec, the 58-point margin of defeat that was a dubious record loss for them in the league.
At the time, director of rugby McCall described the beating as horrible and ugly, but there was little to no improvement from his team on their return to Bath 15 months later, as they were beaten 62-15 – a 47-point gap in a match where they conceded nine tries.
The loss was Saracens’ sixth in 11 league outings, and it left them in sixth place with seven matches remaining. Next up in the PREM is a must-win fixture next Saturday when they host Northampton in front of a crowd of more than 40,000 at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium before they return to The Rec on April 4 for an Investec Champions Cup round of 16 match.
“We have got to be very honest…”
The long-serving McCall, who is stepping down as DOR after 15 years at the end of this season to allow Brendan Venter to take charge, told TNT Sports in the aftermath: “We have got to be very honest about what happened, and we need people who are up for the fight next weekend.
“It’s hugely disappointing. After a decent start, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves at the end of the first half, had a horrible sort of 10 minutes either side of half-time and in the end, we got blown away, let’s be honest.
“The scoreline reflects how we reacted. It’s really, really disappointing. We were in the contest for the first half-hour of the game, but either side of half-time we lost our way a little bit and were blown away at the end.”
The Saracens XV at Bath included Elliot Daly, an England sub who played five minutes in last weekend’s agonising Six Nations loss to France, but Maro Itoje, Ben Earl and Jamie George, who were also involved in that Test, were rested.
Bath had eight different try-scorers against Saracens, but the one player who managed a double was Henry Arundell, the England winger who was dropped at Test level by Steve Borthwick following last month’s round three hammering by Ireland.
Nearing the end of his first season at what he describes as his boyhood club after making the breakthrough at London Irish and then spending two seasons at Racing 92, Arundell enthused: “I love playing for Bath, that’s for sure. What a team, what a place to play!
“The Six Nations was disappointing obviously, but it’s such a fun league and it’s an awesome team to be a part of and for me, boyhood club, it’s just a dream come true every week.
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“It means a lot. I didn’t think coming back would mean as much. I knew it would be special, but there is a feeling every time we come in, and I get on this field wearing the shirt, it has tapped into emotions I haven’t had before. I love it, every single time.”
Arundell paid tribute to the influence wielded at Bath by director of rugby Johann van Graan. “We don’t get ahead of ourselves too much. Johann is very good at keeping us never too high, never too low, and that consistency brings those performances.
“It’s a great group. Like most clubs and environments have good lads but this group is very accepting of all people, and it is really quite special to really think you can be yourself.
“Sometimes in other environments, you kind of have to play a part. Someone like Johann is just a human man first, and he really cares about us as men and boys growing up and then the rugby. That’s a special thing to have.”
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