Sarries off to a flier with six-try procession over Blues

SARACENS kicked off their pre-season with a comfortable six-try win over Bedford Blues at Goldington Road on Friday evening.

There was a brace of tries for skipper Schalk Brits and winger Mike Ellery, plus scores for replacement scrum-half Henry Taylor and centre Nick Tompkins.

Making their debut for the double champions were full-back Sean Maitland, fly-half Alex Lozowski and lock Mark Flanagan who all started the game.

It was the hosts who were first on the scoreboard after Jake Sharp intercepted a speculative pass on halfway to race away to feed his winger Par Tapley who dotted down.

Sarries quickly hit back as Ellery powered over the line carrying two Blues defenders and the rest of the half was all about them.

Ellery doubled his first half tally collecting a crossfield kick from Chris Ashton and, with Sharp in the bin for killing the ball, they added two more tries through captain Brits from the back of dominant driving mauls.

Taylor, fresh from the bench, scored just four minutes after the break and next up was Tomkins, who finished off the try of the evening with some wonderful interplay from forwards and backs in the build-up.

Bedford to their credit rallied and they crossed for two tries late into the second half – Jason Hill and Camilo Parilli-Ocampo the scorers. Star man