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'Everyone should get behind them... they have done their time': Rival boss salutes Saracens

(Photo by Jacques Feeney/Getty Images)

Title-chasing Sale boss Alex Sanderson has paid tribute to his former club Saracens and their imminent return to the ranks of the Gallagher Premiership following their 60-0 first leg hammering of Ealing in the two-game Championship final. 

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Saracens became a pariah in the English game following the repeated salary cap breaches that ultimately resulted in their automatic relegation from the top flight, but their one-year stay in the second tier is just 80 minutes from completion as they host Trailfinders in an academic second leg fixture next Sunday at the StoneX.

By then Saracens will know if Sanderson, their long-serving former assistant, has guided Sale into the Premiership final just five months after he joined the Manchester club as the director of rugby successor to Steve Diamond. 

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The ties between Sanderson and Saracens have remained strong in 2021. Not only are there weekly calls with Mark McCall, his old boss, but many of the players he coached keep in touch and he paid a handsome tribute to their Championship title success when asked by RugbyPass had he watched last Sunday’s first leg and how chuffed he was with their all but guaranteed promotion.  

“I didn’t watch it because I was on the phone for eight hours but I was following it on Twitter and I spoke to some of the boys after,” said Sanderson. “I texted them the day before as they texted me straight after the game [the round 22 Sale loss at Exeter].

“I am absolutely delighted that they are back in the top flight where they deserve to be. They look like they are going to come back as strong as they were when they left, which I had no doubt about because I knew the organisation was in a good place. That was one of the things that enabled my move to happen. I was certain that they were going to get back to where they needed to be, so yeah I am made up for them. Look, they have got to do it again (in the second leg) but it’s a pretty foregone conclusion.

“But I can’t say how tough it was. You people might think it is easy to close ranks and have a siege mentality when the world hates you but it’s not. I have come away to somewhere that is brilliant and special and I love it up here but they have been through two years of it now so I think everyone should get behind them to be fair. They have done their time.”  

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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