Champions on way to creating a glorious dynasty
Saracens can join the great sides of the past because they make the difficult appear simple
Dynasty – there is no accepted definition of what constitutes one but you just know one when you see it. The word that is coveted in the National Football League. It is not enough to win a solitary Super Bowl; the teams who go down in history are those who create a dynasty. Vince Lombardi’s Packers; Chuck Noll’s Steelers and Bill Belichick’s Patriots – they live on, still mentioned whatever era of the sport is being considered.
Whether this Saracens team are yet a dynasty is open to debate when you look at the great sides of the past. Bath, pre-professionalism, and Leicester and Wasps in the pro-era are the benchmarks and the north London club have not, yet, reached their number of trophies. What isn’t debatable is that by taking their second successive European Champions Cup on Saturday, beating Clermont Auvergne 28-17, they are on their way to creating one.
You would have to have a heart of stone not to feel for the magnificent Clermont supporters and players; so many finals, so many losses – yet, put simply, they didn’t deserve to win. For most of the game they were made to play in their own half, under pressure, and were second best. Only sporadically did they manage to get the sort of quick ball that has made them so lethal and from it they scored two tries that kept them in touch on the scoreboard. It stayed tense and tight score-wise into the final 10 minutes but, in truth, Saracens were in control of the outcome for nearly all the game.
No side in the run-up to the final were remotely capable of so limiting the French side and yet Saracens did it with seeming ease. Had they not, unusually, failed to take several try-scoring chances in the first half, they would have won by more than 20 points.
The truth is that it was not easy but experts make the difficult appear simple. There was a hugely disciplined and committed effort from every Saracens player. What Saracens have in particular – most other sides struggle for it frantically and often never achieve it – is consistency. Even when they do not play well there is a standard below which they do not fall. When they do excel, it is just routine excellence, which shows how far they have evolved as a club and group of athletes.
It is a tribute to the effectiveness of the Saracens defence and their decision-makers that they made Clermont, a wonderfully talented and athletic side, look relatively ordinary. With 60 per cent possession, Saracens turned this into almost 70 per cent territorial advantage, despite losing the turnover battle 16-11.
In boxing parlance, Saracens know how to roll with the punches; under pressure they absorb attacks, giving ground when they must but maintaining their defensive shape in the main.
The Clermont back row of Damien Chouly, Peceli Yato and Fritz Lee put enormous pressure on the breakdown and scrapped all over the field. The performance of Lee would have been enough to win many matches and gain man of the match. Neither happened because Saracens stood with them, traded blow for blow, and it was Billy Vunipola who ended up with the award.
In the second half, when Clermont managed a 15-minute spell of ascendancy, Saracens brought on Schalk Burger and Schalk Brits to stabilise the situation and the eventual introduction of Jim Hamilton and Duncan Taylor added experience with no fall in tempo.
Be under no illusion, Clermont had a devastating set of backs, if given the space to operate; they just weren’t allowed to. When Scott Spedding was made to turn and field the ball he was much less of a threat and the potent wing pairing of Dave Strettle and Nick
There was a hugely disciplined and committed effort from every Saracens player
Abendanon found themselves having either to field man and ball or an organised wall of defenders. Clermont made it clear in prematch interviews that they were aware of the type of pressure game played by Saracens but there is a world of difference between seeing something on screen and experiencing it at pitch level. When it came to it Clermont could not escape such a claustrophobic examination.
To continue to produce this level of professionalism is a theoretically simple task; it is just more of the same but, in practice, it is hellishly difficult. There must be an individual commitment to maintaining and improving performance every day and the mental strength that is needed to replicate that, season after season, is enormous.
Time will tell which Saracens players have it and which do not.