Sorry Saracens are put on Rak
ENGLISH club rugby’s long, bad weekend ended a day late in home humiliation for Saracens in last night’s rearranged Champions Cup fixture.
The holders saw their 20-game unbeaten European run brought to a screeching halt by a revved-up Clermont side inspired by man-of-thematch Alivereti Raka, who ran in three of their six tries.
Saracens’ heaviest European defeat completed a clean sweep of losses for all seven Premiership sides in the Champions Cup as their defence crumbled in unfamiliar fashion against an unfamiliar backdrop.
Put back 26 hours after snow made access to Allianz Park hazardous, European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) initially declared the game a behind-closed-doors fixture because of similar concerns. An improvement in the weather led to a rethink yesterday morning so fans who had tickets – and who could make a 5.30pm kick-off – were allowed in after all.
Not surprisingly, this elaborate game of organisational hokey-cokey led to a stream of no-shows, with the upshot being this repeat of last year’s final was played out in front of barely 1,500 at Allianz Park.
Clermont, whose loyal band of about 80 diehards beat out an echoing rhythm to the game on their drums, were not impressed and issued a pre-match promise to pay back their inconvenienced fans.
“For about a dozen centimetres of snow, the organisation of the game bordered on the ridiculous and the absurd,” said the club in a statement.
“Throughout this whole story the club were never invited to the negotiation table and have had to adapt to the inability of the local authorities and Saracens to organise a major sporting event – all this to the detriment of the preparation of our players and messing about our supporters as if they were toys.”
They were as good as their word although Saracens chairman Nigel Wray who – estimating rescheduling had cost his club £300,000 and blaming EPCR – said: “I understand what Clermont are saying, it’s annoying from everybody’s point of view. It’s important to stress the health and safety officer made his decision – it’s nothing to do with us.
“But I’m a big fan of fans and it’s not the way it should have been done. Organisations like EPCR and the RFU, they’re all chaotic. I don’t think they work and this is another example of why.
“I thought the closed-doors statement from EPCR was outrageous. It was a unilateral statement and it was not what had been discussed.”
The ghost game was a horror story for Saracens. In a dire opening 25 minutes, they found themselves 21-0 down and deprived of captain Brad Barritt with concussion. The architect of their difficulties was Raka, Clermont’s Fijian wing, who ran in a quickfire hat-trick.
A beautiful delayed pass from Wesley Fofana put him in for his first before the explosive wing struck again from short range and then strolled in on the shoulder of Morgan Parra after the 16-point scrum-half’s break. So much for Saracens’ fabled defence, which missed 37 tackles – the wolfpack was curled up somewhere else in front of a roaring fire.
Saracens did pull seven points back before half-time with a penalty try but, despite the sin-binning of Fritz Lee, were unable to strike again from three more attempts at a lineout drive with Clermont down to 14. Raka turned provider six minutes after the break with a scintillating 60m run which saw him evade four defenders before putting away Flip van der Merwe.
Sarries added a consolation try through George Kruis in between further scores for Fofana and Isaia Toeava but they were ragged by the end as the pre-eminent side of the era in England and Europe crashed to a sixth successive defeat in all competitions.
“We didn’t see that coming,” said Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall.