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Four talking points as try-less Saracens come up short at Munster
By Liam Heagney at Thomond Park, Limerick
Saturday certainly wasn’t English rugby’s finest Investec Champions Cup pool day. Five teams in action and just a solitary win, from Leicester at home to a brittle Ulster. Mark McCall’s Saracens were amongst the losers, but they at least could hold heads high in Limerick after an exhausting bonus-earning 12-17 loss at Munster.
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They weren’t ‘nilled’ like Sale were by the Stormers in Cape Town. They weren’t embarrassed like the hammered Exeter by Bordeaux in their Sandy Park backyard. Nor were they like the leaky Saints, whose porous seven-try defence was a repeat sinner against Stade Francais in Paris.
Unlike their stumped country colleagues, Saracens instead went toe-to-toe with their Irish opposition and would have been good value for a blunt win if they had managed to hold on when the pressure was at its most searing.
They were in front for an hour, but two tries conceded in a ropey four-minute spell opened a wound they couldn’t fully stitch in time, a frustration encapsulated by Liam Williams’ gaffe in not giving the pass for a clear Juan Martin Gonzalez run in to tie the scores and set up a potentially game-winning conversion. Here are the RugbyPass talking points:
Blunt attack reminiscent of England
Saracens can’t be accused of not laying a foundation for an away day heist. They won their dozen scrums, won all nine of their lineouts, and gathered all six restarts they received. Solid. The trouble was, when it came to attack, they were about as blunt as Steve Borthwick’s England in the last two years.
Bar their March 2024 flourish, England have been short on imagination and that weakness was mirrored by Saracens at Thomond Park where their try-less effort contrasted sharply with them registering seven four-try bonus points in their 10 Gallagher Premiership games this season.
What did for them was their stuck-in-quicksand ruck speed. Stats suggested that whereas 54 of the 91 rucks won by Munster (around 60 per cent) saw the hosts play the ball away within zero to three seconds, Saracens, in that same timeframe, played a mere 27 of their 78 rucks (35 per cent).
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It left the visitors struggling to repeatedly get pace on the ball, greatly restricting their ability to get it to the edges and better test a well-drilled Munster defence that didn’t feel massively stressed.
Reinforcements arrived too late
Can director of rugby McCall be accused of failing to use his bench earlier against a more rested Munster side? Yes.
He ultimately only used six of his eight replacements, rookie Max Eke and Gareth Simpson both getting left in the dugout. But, way more importantly, it wasn’t until he hooked his entire front row on 62 minutes that an initial alteration was made.
That was immediately after Saracens had relinquished their 9-3 lead, tiring hooker Jamie George falling off a tackle on Gavin Coombes just inside the 22 and then tighthead Marco Riccioni being much too slow to react on the line when Dian Bleuler pick and drove from the ensuing ruck to score a try that was converted.
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Munster, in contrast, had changed four of their starting eight forwards in one go 10 minutes earlier and this spurt of energy it generated was decisive against a team that had to host Bristol in the Premiership last weekend while the Irish province didn’t have a URC game.
The Saracens subs used in Limerick were collectively decent. Munster gave away the game’s last five penalties in the closing 15 minutes, including two at the scrum. It highlighted they had plenty to offer, but the hosts’ overall greater freshness and earlier bench use was critical.
New but not really new
It’s been a regular feature at McCall’s media briefings this season for him to emphasise how this is a new Saracens in an era minus the likes of Owen Farrell and the Vunipola brothers.
Post-game at Thomond Park was no different as his first answer to the half-dozen questions he was asked in a three-minute stand-up included the line: “I am proud of a lot of what this new team gave out there tonight.”
There was a reference in his follow-up answer as to how lock Harry Wilson was playing for Doncaster in the Championship last season and how facing Munster away was a good experience for the likes of Fergus Burke, the out-half signed from New Zealand who is in his first winter at the club.
And yet, as much as Saracens claim to be a ‘new’ team, they certainly aren’t a new Saracens in the eyes of interim Munster boss Ian Costello, who coached against the Londoners during his time as a Wasps assistant.
Queried if he had detected any difference in how Saracens are doing things minus talisman Farrell and some other long-serving cornerstones who have left the club, he replied: “I don’t think so. They have a really clear identity, a really clear DNA.
“Talking to a few of the lads there, this year they feel they have really recaptured it. The DNA is the same, definitely. They are good side, a tough team to break down.”
In other words, the more things have changed in recent months at Saracens the more they are really staying the same.
Final Test squad auditions
With international squad announcements set to come thick and fast this week ahead of the Guinness Six Nations, starting with Wales on Monday and followed by England on Tuesday, Saracens’ numerous Test contenders would have been looking to impress in Ireland.
However, while someone such as the one-cap Tom Willis did his chances of English selection no harm, his fellow countryman Alex Lozowski and Welsh hopeful Williams would have caught the plane back to London feeling frustrated by their auditions.
Saracens gave up fewer turnovers, giving away possession on 19 occasions compared to Munster’s 24, but it seemed the giveaways made by Lozowski (three) and Williams (four) were most crucial to the defeat.
With Wales in the doldrums it would a major surprise if Williams isn’t back in Warren Gatland’s plans for the first time since last July’s trip to Australia, but there is less certainly regarding Lozowksi given the much greater competition for England places.
It would be a pity if Lozowski doesn’t get a Borthwick invite. Sumptuous early-season form earned one of the game’s good guys a deserved November squad call-up.
Acap didn’t materialise to bridge the gap to his last Test appearance in 2018, but it would be a waste of all that time he spent in camp relearning the ropes if he isn’t asked back now despite his frustrations at Munster.
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