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The only thing driving Saracens to win more trophies
By Josh Raisey
It has been over four years since Saracens last lifted the Investec Champions Cup, and in that time they have been through a lot.
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Two of those years they were not even competing in the competition after spending a season in the Championship in 2020/21, and obviously failing to qualify as a result the following season. Those two absent seasons were bookended by a semi-final loss to Racing 92 in 2020 and a quarter-final loss to eventual champions La Rochelle last season.
Saracens confirmed their return to the top of domestic rugby last season by winning the Gallagher Premiership, but they may still have a point to prove on the European front that they are again the force they once were.
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The loss to Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle at the Stade Marcel Deflandre in April was particularly chastening for the three-time champions as they were physically dominated up front in a manner unseen in recent years. Now appearing to be firing on all cylinders with the return of their World Cup contingent after a shaky start to the campaign, the London outfit may well have revenge on the agenda when they turn their attention to the Champions Cup with a trip to Loftus Versfeld to take on the Bulls on December 9.
But for captain Owen Farrell and his team, none of that seems to be going through their minds. Instead, they seem to be driven by one thing and one thing only, and that is their love of winning titles. Success breeds success, and having tasted Champions Cup success on three occasions, Farrell recently said that the desire to reach the pinnacle of the club game again is all that is fueling his teammates.
“We would love to win a European cup this year because we’d love to win a European cup,” the England captain said at the season launch of the Investec Champions Cup at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
“It’s not because of things that have happened before and so on. A good few of us have been lucky enough to have the chance to win it before and that taste for that is massive. And we want to be back up there. We’ve not been up there for a few years and we want to improve on last year and be at the back end of the tournament.”
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With that said, it does not mean that Saracens have not learnt from the past. The loss to La Rochelle was perhaps the most severe and humbling lesson Saracens have been taught by any team in over a decade. Farrell not only believes that such lessons will be beneficial for the upcoming campaign, but he is sure they actually benefited the men in black for the denouement of the Premiership season, as they finished at the summit of the league and defeated Sale Sharks in the final too.
“It certainly taught us a lot of lessons at the back end of last year, this tournament,” he said.
“It certainly showed us some things we needed to improve towards the end, going back into the Premiership, and I thought we ended up doing that pretty well. But we don’t want to make those mistakes again in the tournament this year. We want to be challenging, we want to be bringing the best out of ourselves in the big occasions.”
Saracens get their campaign underway with their trip to South Africa to face the Bulls before hosting Connacht at the StoneX Stadium a week later.
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