Following Saracens’ 19-15 victory over Leicester Tigers, here are our five takeaways from the PREM Rugby encounter at Stone X Stadium.
Top Line
A PREM Rugby encounter played at an international-esque intensity, with both clubs desperate to continue their bid for a place in the semi-finals.
Saracens came into the fixture off the back of a statement 85-19 thrashing of Sale Sharks, a result that spurred their chances of making the knockout stages and they carried that swagger into the opening minutes of the action at the Stone X Stadium, bossing the airwaves, gain-line, and intensity.
That translated onto the scoreboard in the third minute as young scrum-half Charlie Bracken darted away from a ruck, drew in a Tigers’ defender and smartly offloaded to his centre Olly Hartley, who skipped past the attempted tackle of Freddie Steward, left Ollie Hassell-Collins for dead and cantered in for the first try of the game.
A victory today for Leicester could have put further pressure on second-placed Bath in the standings and the Tigers weren’t going to let Sarries have it all their own way with Steward providing the reply as he latched onto a Billy Searle pass inside the Sarries’ 22, the fly-half brilliantly double pumping the pass before giving it to his full-back, as the Tigers levelled matters.
Izaia Perse’s visit to the naughty chair threatened a Tigers’ implosion, but it was not to be as Geoff Parling’s men held on for the most part before Noah Caluori produced something truly remarkable to score, more on that shortly.
It was perhaps only fitting that the state of the first half was reflected on the scoreboard as Hassell-Collins dotted down outwide to tie the scores at 12 apiece when the players jogged off into the cloakrooms.
The grind continued into the second half with Saracens muscling their way in front as Eroni Mawi was awarded his five-pointer after a TMO review in the 48th minute and that would ultimately be the only try of a hotly contested second half. Searle managed a penalty to make it a four-point game, and while Saracens were chasing a bonus point, yellow cards to Caluori and Lucio Cinti hindered their pursuit, but Mark McCall won’t get too greedy and will be pleased with the four points.
Saracens’ freakish talent that Steve Borthwick simply cannot ignore
Earlier this week, Nick Easter detailed how Steve Borthwick should split his squad for July’s Nations Championship fixtures to contend with the demanding travel schedule, with a ‘gun side’ taking on South Africa and Fiji with a second squad heading to Argentina to tackle Los Pumas.
While the former number eight suggests that the majority of the ‘gun side’ should be made up for the PREM Rugby finalists, and whether Saracens make it that far or not, the England head coach simply cannot ignore Noah Caluori. Borthwick is spoilt for choice when it comes to wingers, but none bring the aerial prowess that the Saracens’ teenager provides.
His five-try haul against Sale Sharks was something otherworldly, and while he didn’t bag 25 points against Leicester Tigers this week, his performance was no less impressive.
He defused a wonderful, threatening high bomb from Searle early in the first half, chasing across half the pitch before rising above anyone else to pluck the ball out of the skies. Saracens looked exposed at that moment, but his ability to comfortably rise above Steward was seriously impressive.
Sure, he wasn’t perfect, spilling a pair of bombs after that; they were tricky ones, but he produced the highlight of the game as he received the ball on the wing in an attack that wasn’t overly threatening until he caught the ball…
Showing wonderful pace, dexterity and power to score an insane try, chipping the ball over Steward, intelligently ran out of the field of play, sprung back in at the perfect moment, regathered and rode the tackle of Hassell-Collins to claim the five points. It was a truly glorious score, showing insane rugby IQ, athleticism, and raw talent.
Hassell-Collins deserves credit for making the aerial duel, well a duel, and not a mandhandling, but the Sarries rookie still comfortably came out on top and forced a penalty from the former which led to Mawi’s try.
His yellow carding was a tinge harsh, but not wrong; however, young players make mistakes, and his indiscretion was one that stopped a try and got his side out of a threatening situation. Frankly, it was more a failure of his pack than him.
England face two brilliant kicking international teams in South Africa and Argentina this July, and Caluori can make an enormous difference in both fixtures. The Springboks have thrived under the removal of the escort/blockers on kicks, and if England are to have any chance of a victory at altitude at Ellis Park, they need to be excellent under the high ball, and ignoring Caluori’s prowess would be a fatal mistake from Borthwick.
Sarries shortcomings
If one was wondering why Saracens aren’t competing better for a semi-final spot, today provided clear evidence with their star-studded forward pack struggling to really set the platform.
The scrum was backtracking all afternoon against a Tigers’ pack that very clearly had the upper hand for much of the match. With England’s best lineout thrower in their ranks and the country’s captain in the locks, the inaccuracy at the set-piece is simply unacceptable. Tigers contested superbly and applied the pressure, which compounded their woes, but the Londoners simply had to be better, especially with an insane athlete like Theo McFarland in the pack too.
Their final lineout success rate was over 80%, but it was hardly a platform to strike from, as, more often than not, it was messy, scrapping for possession. Lucky for Mark McCall, he also had the brilliant Ben Earl, who consistently got the backtracking scrum out of trouble with world-class number eight play to get the ball out and quickly.
Furthermore, their soft underbelly was brutally exposed with a lacklustre goal-line dropout, which was launched not far outside of their 22, into no-man’s land, and gave Leicester a perfect opportunity to attack from, and they did not waste that chance, converting it into five points.
Tigers refuse to go away
It’s seemingly etched into the Leicester Tigers DNA, the never-give-in attitude, and while Parling’s men were dealt a sizeable blow today in terms of their bid to remain in the play-offs, they fought until the very last minute.
That killer-edge was lacking, but so often, Saracens threatened to run away with his match, but Leicester found a way to repel them.
They forced 18 errors from the hosts, won six turnovers and were squeaky clean on the discipline front – apart from Perese’s yellow card – conceding just six penalties compared to Saracens’ 14.
At times, Parling’s side lacked the creativity and incision on attack to really break Saracens down, but they struck at crucial times to stay in the fight. Searle’s double pump dummy before releasing Steward looked simple enough, but it was excellent fly-half play and needed to finally get the reward their pressure deserved.
After missing out on a score through more excellence from the host’s defence, the Tigers were gifted a superb attacking opportunity from the ensuing dropout, and Hassell-Collins was outwide to ensure it wasn’t wasted.
While that was an example of Tigers’ ruthless, but if Prem Rugby’s most successful club is to win a 12th title this season, they will need to improve their accuracy in the opposition’s 22 as they averaged a dire 1.5 points from their 10 entries. Once Sarries stalled the Leicester maul, the Tigers’ attack looked toothless, so finding a spark could make all the difference.
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Implications
The main outcome of the match is that the Saracens remain in the running for a play-off spot even though the odds are against them. They moved up to 42 points and five points adrift of fifth-placed Exeter, who host Gloucester tomorrow at Sandy Park with Sarries and the Chiefs meeting on the final day of the regular season on June 6.
Before that, McCall’s men face a daunting task of tackling the Bristol Bears at Ashton Gate in a fortnight, but then have two favourable fixtures against Gloucester and Harlequins, who have nothing but pride to play for in the final rounds. Saracens will be targeting maximum points from those games but with games against the two teams immediately above them over the next month or so, you simply cannot write them off.
As for Leicester, they passed up an opportunity to go level on points with second-place Bath, who at the time of writing are fronting up against top-of-the-table Northampton.
What makes the loss at the Stone X all so significant for the Tigers comes when casting an eye on who is next as unlike Saracens, they face three play-off hopefuls in their last four matches. It’s Northampton next at Welford Road before heading to Sale, hosting Exeter, and concluding their campaign at The Rec against Bath.