Kruis warns Saracens have more in tank as unbeaten run rolls on
14 Cardiff Blues 26 Saracens
George Kruis insists Saracens have “a lot more to give” despite extending their unbeaten run to 22 games in all competitions with this victory that all but ensures the Premiership champions will progress to the quarter-finals of the Heineken Champions Cup.
Saracens require just one more victory from their remaining two Pool Three fixtures to guarantee a place in the knockout stages.
Yet while the scoreboard would appear to show a comfortable victory for Mark Mccall’s side, Cardiff were highly competitive.
Two second-half penalties by Owen Farrell and a late disputed try by Jamie George eventually broke Cardiff ’s resistance. But if the Welsh region had been able to take greater advantage of a second-half yellow card given to Will Skelton when Saracens led by just two points, John Mulvihill’s side could have kept their own qualifying hopes alive.
You have to go back to the quarter-final stages of this competition for Saracens’ last defeat, by eventual champions Leinster, in Dublin on
April 1. Yet Kruis insisted there was no sense of contentment within the squad. “As a group we want to get better and there is a lot more to give,” he said.
Cardiff had taken a surprise lead at the break after tries by Rey Lee-lo and Dan Fish turned the game on its head following a dominant opening by Saracens, featuring a try by Sean Maitland and two penalties by Farrell.
The turning point came during Skelton’s period in the sin-bin for collapsing a line-out drive and Cardiff’s inability to convert pressure into points.
Mulvihill questioned the decision to award George his try after Ollie Robinson appeared to get an arm under the ball.
Despite the defeat, he insisted he was proud. “We are in a competition with the 20 best teams in Europe and out of the budgets we are ranked 20th,” Mulvihill added.