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Leicester heap more misery on Saracens amid Owen Farrell bombshell report

By PA
Owen Farrell - PA

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.

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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.

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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.

Owen Farrell Saracens
Owen Farrell has been linked to Racing 92 – PA
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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.

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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.

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Comments

1 Comment
T
TM 562 days ago

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.

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NH 56 minutes ago
'The Wallabies need to convert much better - or Melbourne could be much worse'

Nice one as always Brett. I think the stats hide a bit of the dominance the lions had, and they would look alot worse in that first half when the game was more in the balance. You mention it here but I think it hasn’t been talked about enough was the lineout. The few times the wallabies managed to exit their half and get an opportunity to attack in the 1st half, the lineout was lost. This was huge in terms of lions keeping momentum and getting another chance to attack, rather than the wallabies getting their chance and to properly ‘exit’ their half. The other one you touch on re “the will jordan bounce of the ball” - is kick chase/receipt. I thought that the wallabies kicked relatively well (although were beaten in this area - Tom L rubbish penalty kicks for touch!), but our kick receipt and chase wasn’t good enough jorgenson try aside. In the 1st half there was a moment where russell kicked for a 50:22 and potter fumbled it into touch after been caught out of position, lynagh makes a similar kick off 1st phase soon after and keenan is good enough to predict the kick, catch it at his bootlaces and put a kick in. That kick happened to go out on the full but it was a demonstration on the difference in positioning etc. This meant that almost every contested kick that was spilled went the way of the lions, thats no accident, that is a better chase, more urgency, more players in the area. Wallabies need to be better in who fields their kicks getting maxy and wright under most of them and Lynagh under less, and the chase needs to be the responsibility of not just one winger but a whole group of players who pressure not just the catch but the tackle, ruck and following phase.

17 Go to comments
J
JW 1 hour ago
Competing interests and rotated squads: What the 'player welfare summer' is really telling us

Thanks for the further background to player welfare metrics Nick.


Back on the last article I noted that WR is now dedicating a whole section in their six-point business plan to this topic. It also noted that studies indicated 85-90% of workload falls outside of playing. So in respect to your point on the classification of ‘involvements’ included even subs with a low volume of minutes, it actually goes further, to the wider group of players that train as if they’re going to be required to start on the weekend, even if they’re outside the 23. That makes even the 30-35 game borderline pale into insignificance.


No doubt it is won of the main reasons why France has a quota on the number of one clubs players in their International camps, and rotate in other clubs players through the week. The number of ‘invisible’ games against a player suggests the FFRs 25 game limit as more appropriate?


So if we take it at face value that Galthie and the FFR have got it right, only a dozen players from the last 60 international caps should have gone on this tour. More players from the ‘Scotland 23’ than the more recent 23.


The only real pertinent question is what do players prefer more, health or money? There are lots of ethical decisions, like for instance whether France could make a market like Australia’s where their biggest rugby codes have yearly broadcast deals of 360 and 225 million euros. They do it by having a 7/8 month season.

68 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ 'The Wallabies need to convert much better - or Melbourne could be much worse' 'The Wallabies need to convert much better - or Melbourne could be much worse'