Saracens end warm up with five-try bloody nose
ENGLAND flanker Ben Earl claimed it was not “all doom and gloom” despite Saracens heading back to the top flight on the back of a thorough thrashing from Ulster.
Mark McCall’s men were given a bloody nose by a fired up Irish side, keen to make amends for a hefty loss to Sarries at Kingspan Stadium six days earlier.
Ulster came up against a Wolf Pack which had forgotten to sharpen teeth or claws before setting off for the Honourable Artillery Company sports ground.
Not many Premiership teams will stick five tries on Sarries and stop them from scoring on their Premiership return as well as out-power and out run them.
And, while any defeat grates with the five times English champions, Earl insists the focus is on the Premiership.
He said: “We are not about the score line at the moment, just performance and how we’re feeling on the field. We stayed in the fight until half time but they clearly had something to prove after the way we won at their place. We will have to expect the same from Bristol on Friday.
“It’s not all doom and gloom. Sometimes a defeat like this can fire you up.”
Sarries would have loved to have finished off their preparations with an all-guns blazing victory at a ground flanked by military statues and cannons.
However, they could fire only blanks while their Irish opponents were extremely accurate whenever they got within a few yards
of the enemy line.
Ulster fly-half Flanker Nick Timoney and wing Craig Gilroy started the rout with tries inside 20 minutes. Timoney forced his way over when the Ulster pack pressed Sarries back on their heels.
Then Sarries had lock Nick Isiekwe sinbinned for preventing John Cooney taking a quick tap penalty.
Gilroy finished off a flowing cross field move to dive over in the corner taking Sarries tacklers with him. An Alex Lozowski penalty gave the men in black small respite.
Referee Karl Dickson showed Sarries’ centre Nick Tompkins a yellow card for a tip tackle on Brad Roberts and Ulster used their man advantage with Cooney feeding scrum-half Angus Curtis to shrug off Sean Maitland and Earl and touch the
Gilroy raced over in the left hand corner for another well executed try before flanker Marcus Rea rounded off an explosive Ulster display with the fifth try from another formidable forward drive.