1
The curious 'too up and down' verdict by nearly champions Saracens
By
Liam Heagney
Mark McCall has curiously labelled Saracens’ 2021/22 return to the Gallagher Premiership as inconsistent even though they just lost six of their 24 regular season games and were level with Leicester in the final minute of the Twickenham final before losing to a last-gasp drop goal. The Londoners returned to the top flight last September after spending the previous year in the Championship where they were crowned champions following their automatic relegation from the Premiership for repeated salary cap breaches.
ADVERTISEMENT
They spent the majority of last season locked into second place behind leaders Leicester, enough to secure them home-field advantage for the semi-finals and they comfortably defeated London rivals Harlequins in that playoff game.
However, ahead of his club’s round two start to the new 2022/23 Premiership season away to Quins this Saturday (they had a round one bye last weekend), Saracens boss McCall has outlined his disappointment with how his team generally performed last season, an inconsistency that he claims he hasn’t fully identified why it happened.
“We felt last year we were too up and down,” he said despite a regular season record of W17 D1 L6. “Not just too up and down from match to match but even during matches to be honest. That was the disappointing thing and obviously we have addressed that and talked about it as a group.
“We have got a very open group who want to be better than they were last year and we have got international players who have got the World Cup in twelve months’ time, that will spur them on and motivate them to really push their own games forward.
“But we have got this young group underneath them, all of whom had real breakthrough seasons last year to be honest and you guys know all their names and equally they are keen to push their individual game on and that will help our team game.”
Asked why Saracens were too inconsistent in the eyes of McCall, he added: “We never really put our fingers on the reason why. It usually comes down to preparation and what you see during the week you will see on a weekend, but it’s hard to say. There were glimpses all the way through last year of what we were capable of and we played well for periods in some matches.
ADVERTISEMENT
“I’m not saying we didn’t play well. We did but the up and down nature of it we didn’t enjoy and we want to have a more consistent approach. We want consistency in attitude and effort and it is a really, really competitive Premiership this year. You saw that last weekend. It might take us a bit of time to be playing our best rugby and we know that, but hopefully we get to the end of the season feeling better about our rugby.”
