1
Saracens’ torrid weekend that began with revelations over Owen Farrell’s possible move to Racing 92 continued with a 19-10 Gallagher Premiership defeat at Leicester.
ADVERTISEMENT
Farrell’s champions struggled on a hard-fought afternoon in the East Midlands with the England captain powerless to prevent a third league defeat in four matches.
News he has been in talks with Racing 92 over joining the Top 14 leaders next season emerged on Friday, sending shockwaves through Saracens and the Premiership even if an agreement has yet to be reached.
Farrell is England’s biggest star who has spent 15 years at StoneX Stadium, but a move to Paris would make him ineligible for the national side and land another blow on the credibility of a competition experiencing an exodus of players across the Channel.
If he does head to the French capital, on recent evidence he will be departing a troubled Saracens with their latest loss registering a fifth Premiership defeat of the season – their total for the whole of the 2022-23 campaign.
Errors by the 32-year-old contributed to two of Leicester’s three tries but Tigers also made life difficult for the visitors, their determination stamped all over an impressive display.
ADVERTISEMENT
Farrell’s early contributions were with the boot when stationed deep inside his own half as Saracens faced an early onslaught from the hosts, but in the 12th minute he made a significant blunder.
Flinging out a pass intended for Elliot Daly, the ball was instead picked off by centre Dan Kelly who cantered over for the opening try.
Saracens hit back with a long-range try inspired by Daly’s athleticism that was finished by Tom Parton and, having landed the conversion, the England fly-half delivered successive pinpoint kicks that forced Leicester to scramble.
Having nudged Saracens five points ahead with a penalty, he then dropped a simple pass and kicked a ball straight into touch, inviting Tigers to attack from the edge of the 22.
ADVERTISEMENT
With waves of Leicester runners building pressure, the visiting defence cracked with Matt Rogerson crashing over to open a 12-10 lead.
Kelly had a second try in which he outhustled Daly controversially chalked off and the frantic pace continued into the second half with both sides going close to scoring.
Leicester turned down three routine points in favour of going for the corner and they began hammering away at the whitewash, gaining the advantage of Maro Itoje’s departure to the sin-bin for not retreating 10 metres.
Saracens’ scrum was stood up and, with the white shirts buckling before the repeated attacks, quick hands delivered the key moment with Harry Simmons finishing in the right corner.
Leicester now had the cushion to close out the game and they did this in solid fashion to leave the visitors positioned in sixth place in the table.
Owen Farrell was not the reason Leicester defeated Saracens, although he made a few errors, I would have rated him about 6.5 to 7. The main reason was Leicester dominance in the scrum, and generally more aggressive in the contact area. I also think Mark McCall made a tactical error in not bringing on Mulipola after about 50 minutes, this would have added about 16kgs extra to the loose heads side of the scrum. Interesting to note, after Mulipola came on Leicester had 2 scrums, in which the tight-head Hurd, went flat on the ground almost immediately after the put-in. Should this not have been a Saracens penalty, as it always seemed to be when Crean and Judge were the Saracens props, or is the referee been conditioned and influenced by the previous scrums and not by what happens in a particular scrum.