Revival is under way at Saracens, warns Lozowski
Champions go to Leicester on run of seven defeats, but playmaker tells Gavin Mairs the worst is behind them
December 17, 2017. Remember the date. According to Alex Lozowski, this was when the seeds were sown for Saracens’ revival this season. Mark McCall’s side travel to Welford Road to face Leicester Tigers today desperately seeking to avoid an eighth successive defeat, but Lozowski believes that the corner has already been turned. Ominously, it seems that run has not diminished the internal belief that the European champions, seeking a third successive title, can still achieve their silverware goals for the season.
Lozowski, who has had to step up to a senior leadership role given the injuries to Saracens’ international contingent, claims that the foundation stones were laid in the narrow defeat by Clermont Auvergne last Sunday.
“It was just this feeling we had out there on the field,” said Lozowski, who scored one of two tries against Clermont only for Saracens to succumb to a last-minute penalty by Scott Spedding following seven kicks by Morgan Parra.
“Sometimes it is hard to describe the feeling you have during a game, but it felt like we were in a good place and in the changing room after, even on the back of a loss, it just felt that we had given more of a good account of ourselves and more of a Saracens performance that we could be proud of. I think perhaps when we look back on that game in the future it might be one we think it was, not a good day, but a day when things changed for the better. Now we are hopefully on the upward curve and we can look forward to games and see where we are.
“We have things at the club that we talk about – work rate, honesty, humility – those values that we really pay attention to. I think with the performance at the weekend we saw a lot more of that in the way we played. And just a feeling that no matter what happened in the game, it was always just what happened next really whether it was good or bad. Whatever happened next was the most important thing.
“Previously we maybe worried about what had happened before and dwelled on it a bit too much. It is just those little things that were much better for us against Clermont away.
“I know we lost, which is hugely disappointing – we wanted to win that game and are not happy at losing – but I think we are just much happier about the way we went about it.”
Welford Road is not exactly the most obvious staging point for a revival. Leicester too have a point to prove having lost back-to-back games to Munster in the Champions Cup. Just three points separate the two sides in the Premiership table, with Saracens in third and Leicester in sixth place.
Lozowski never won a game there while he was a Wasps player, but insists he relishes the hostile atmosphere for visiting teams.
“I have been there a few times with Wasps and lost,” he said. “It is an old ground, a famous ground, everyone knows that the atmosphere is quite hostile.
“They are on top of you when you are in the changing room, you can hear the fans above you stamping their feet. That is what you want to play in, it is brilliant, it brings a smile to your face when you are running out. We are ready for that.
“As a club we have never really been obsessed with results or outcomes. It is more the way we do things and obviously the way we did things against Clermont in the first game – there was nothing to be proud of.
“But the way we played in the second game and the way we applied ourselves, the way we played for each other and came together, is something we can be proud of despite the loss. The way we do things is more important than the result and we will find that if we do things right we will get the results. I am sure we are going to come back from where we are now.”
It all makes for a fascinating contest with Lozowski determined that his optimism is not misplaced. He is adamant that Saracens can still qualify from their Champions Cup pool with victories over the Ospreys and Northampton and reignite their Premiership title challenge.
“We all totally believe we are going to go through or we know we can and we know what we have to do to get through [in the Champions Cup pool]. We totally believe in ourselves to do that,” he added.
“Like we believed we could go to Clermont and win and believe we can go to the Ospreys and win if we play well.
“We will be a bottom seed coming out of the Champions Cup groups if we do manage to do that but we still believe that we can achieve what we want to achieve in both competitions.”
‘I know we lost at Clermont but we were just much happier about the way we went about it’