{"id":339585,"date":"2025-12-10T14:34:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T14:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/339585\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T14:34:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T14:34:12","slug":"the-maro-itoje-query-george-martin-had-to-settle-before-saracens-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/339585\/","title":{"rendered":"The Maro Itoje query George Martin had to settle before Saracens move"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Saracens<\/a> director of rugby Mark McCall believes the statement signing of a \u201chungry\u201d George Martin<\/a> almost completes the jigsaw when it comes to their squad rebuild.<\/p>\n

The England<\/a> second row will arrive from Leicester<\/a> next season in one of the most significant domestic moves of recent years. <\/p>\n

And McCall thinks that with the stocks already available, it will set Saracens up for seasons to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really, really thrilled to bring George to the club,\u201d said McCall. \u201cHe\u2019s the perfect age \u2013 24 \u2013 and already with a lot of experience behind him at club level and international level.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a real tough, abrasive, hard-hitting back-five forward who really complements some of the back five players that we have got at the club.<\/p>\n

Fixture<\/p>\n

Investec Champions Cup<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sharks <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Saracens <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were super impressed with him when we met him, just in what he wants to achieve in the years ahead and how hungry he is. He came across super well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited by the players we\u2019re producing and we want to build from within as much as possible but occasionally you need to go to the outside as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lure of playing his club rugby alongside Maro Itoje<\/a> in the Saracens engine room was one of the factors in Martin\u2019s decision to make the switch according to McCall. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure that was part of his thinking,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe asked plenty of questions in the interview about the direction the club was going in and who he\u2019d be playing with.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it wasn\u2019t just Maro, he understood the age profile of the group. There\u2019s a good group there now who are all in their mid-20s, really motivated and we\u2019d like to keep that group together for the next two or three years and see what they can do together.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last time we had this scale of a rebuild was around 2015 to be honest and we managed to keep that group together for a while. Like any group, it gets to the end of its life cycle. Some of that group, Sean Maitland<\/a>, Mako Vunipola<\/a>, Billy Vunipola<\/a> etc have all left the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re 18 months into this next group. We\u2019ve got plenty of youngsters coming through our academy, Jack Bracken<\/a>, Tobias Elliott<\/a>, Angus Hall<\/a>, Noah Caluori<\/a>, Nathan Mitchelow, Charlie Bracken\u2026 but we do know that we need the odd person from the outside to add value to the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve got a good few pieces of the jigsaw in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saracens back row Andy Onyeama-Christie predicts that the 1.98m, 127kg enforcer will fit in well at his new North London home.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to get guys who are going to show the same characteristics of the people that have been here before and been successful before and you like to hope that George will be one of those people,\u201d said Christie.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a super physical player, he works hard, he grafts and that\u2019s the kind of person that you want to have in a team with you. He\u2019s got a fair few caps considering his age.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s had his injury issues and I know how that feels so I hope he overcomes them. I guess we will have faith he will overcome them well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be an exciting introduction to the squad for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin is currently sidelined by shoulder nerve damage having last played in February against France<\/a> when he won his 21st cap.<\/p>\n

Leicester say, somewhat vaguely, he will be back in the New Year. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe hasn\u2019t given me a date when that\u2019s going to happen but obviously we\u2019ve done our due diligence and talked to all the people that we needed to talk to to be assured that everything was going to be fine from that point of view,\u201d said McCall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall believes the statement signing of a \u201chungry\u201d George Martin almost completes the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-339585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}