Saracens head for their great showdown
AFTER five or more months on a starvation diet, all sorts of tasty rugby delicacies are being offered up at present. It’s almost too much for our stressed digestive systems especially as first we have to consume the leftovers from last season, sorry this season.
Some are more palatable than others. I have lost all appetite for the 2020 Six Nations, it now seems a bit of an irrelevance, an illstarred tournament that should probably have been ended after Round 3 with a large asterisk indicating the unfortunate circumstances in the record books.
The Gallagher Premiership meanwhile is the English game’s bread and butter and although some of the games post-lockdown have been a little stodgy and half baked, others have risen splendidly to the occasion. The main thing, of course, is that Premiership rugby is back on the menu.
But the European Champions Cup? Now that is genuinely exciting and suddenly seems to be upon us after months of uncertainty although after everything that has happened nobody is counting their chickens.
It still seems probable that the matches in Dublin and Exeter will be behind closed doors but there is a chance of a ‘crowd’ for the two games in France where there is currently carte blanche for up to 5,000 fans. In addition you can apply for special dispensation to the local prefecture to increase that and that’s exactly what Clermont have done for tonight’s T14 game with Toulouse when 10,000 will be allowed into Stade Michelin.
If that goes off without alarm it is reasonable to expect a similar crowd, or possibly even larger, will be allowed in for their quarter-final with Racing and, as a knock on, Toulouse might feel encouraged to apply for a similar dispensation for their game with Ulster. Hitherto Toulouse has been something of a Covid hotspot and the authorities have discouraged such applications but it’s a changeable situation.
The competition this year has thrown up four intriguing quarter-finals but the game that towers above all others is surely Saracens’ visit to Dublin to tackle Leinster. The prospect of Saracens rounding off an extraordinarily painful and chastening season with one last defiant hurrah is an enticing one, but their preparations took a turn for the worse yesterday with the dismissal of Owen Farrell for a high tackle in their sloppy home defeat againt Wasps.
Farrell, who had made a leisurely start to what could be 12 months of continuous rugby, seems likely to face a ban for his ill disciplined tackle and his availability for the quarter-final at the Aviva must be in doubt.
That would be a huge blow with presumably Alex Goode being asked to step up to fly-half but we have learned not to write Saracens off when their backs are against the wall. They have already fought their way out of a brute of a pool at the height of the salary cap controversy and now, even denuded of a number of departing players, Saracens will be intent on proving themselves the best team in Europe for the fourth time in five years.
Saracens will want to leave the message that their winning had very little to do with money and was almost totally connected with them being a better, tighter team than the opposition
Which all sounds great in theory but to achieve that they must first defeat a seemingly bullet proof Leinster side who were unbeaten throughout the pool stages and unbeaten during the regular season of the PRO14.
With their large squad of centrally-contracted stars Leinster can hardly claim to have lost out to Saracens in recent years on financial grounds – the Irish mega-province are the envy of most of Europe in that respect – so the rivalry is a pure rugby thing.
In head to heads, they hold the upper hand. Although they lost the 2019 final 20-10, they can reflect on an impressive 30-19 quarter-final win the previous year while, going back a little, they did the double over Saracens in the 2010-11 tournament.
Saracens are aware of all this but despite various summer departures – some long planned such as George Kruis and Will Skelton, others short term loan deals – the core of their European Cup-winning teams remains in place although Farrell’s dismissal threatens that. Maro Itoje and the Vunipolas in particular have started the season with a bang, Jamie George has been ticking over nicely
“Maro Itoje and the Vunipolas in particular have begun the restart with a bang”
“You could make a strong case for Exeter now being outright tournament favourites”
while skipper Brad Barritt and Richard Wigglesworth have just a handful of Sarries games left in their careers and are hungry, while Goode won’t be heading to Japan until Europe is done and dusted. Elsewhere there is much else to look forward too. On the Saturday the second quarter-final sees the all-singing, all-dancing Racing side travel to Clermont who have been erratic in the T14 but are a different beast at home in Europe. Despite that, I would expect Racing’s star-studded team to prevail.
On the Sunday it is difficult to make a case for Ulster causing an upset in Toulouse but such comments will act as a red rag to the Ulstermen and French complacency is the biggest danger for a Toulouse side aiming to secure a record breaking fifth European title.
Equally there is a clear favourite when Exeter host Northampton who have been finding life difficult either side of the lockdown. You could make a very strong case for Exeter now being the outright tournament favourites and Rob Baxter, well aware that his side have sometimes failed to reach the heights in Europe, will have them properly revved up.
Saints, with Dan Biggar at the helm and Courtney Lawes, left, putting some stick about are well capable of a huge one-off performance and that is what Chiefs will prepare for, not the misfiring unit that has been struggling in the Premiership recently.