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Vunipola reacts to Saracens' shock Championship loss and whether contract has 'no promotion' clauses
By Liam Heagney
Mako Vunipola has given his reaction to last Saturday’s shock debut defeat for Saracens in the Championship, adding that he is not sure if his contract contains any clauses about what might happen in the event of the London club not securing promotion back to the Gallagher Premiership for 2021/22.
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The 2019 Premiership and Heineken Cup champions were ambushed 25-17 at Cornish Pirates in their maiden second-tier outing following their automatic relegation from the top-flight due to repeated salary cap breaches.
None of the England Guinness Six Nations players were available for last weekend’s club match but Saracens still didn’t travel lightly to Cornwall as they fielded a team containing seven internationals sharing 165 Test caps between them – including winger Sean Maitland, who featured in Scotland’s win last month at Twickenham, and prop Vincent Koch, a veteran of the 2019 Springboks World Cup-winning side.
Saracens are still expected to win promotion back to the Premiership as their England internationals – the Vunipola brothers, Jamie George, Maro Itoje, Owen Farrell and Elliot Daly – will be available later in the campaign but the speculation prompted by last weekend’s opening loss was whether contracts for the leading players contain clauses that would be triggered by that expected promotion not being realised. It was last July when Vunipola signed his contract extension at the club.
“As a Sarries player it was a shock with the result but you just feel more for the players,” said loosehead Vunipola. “You are gutted for them and it is tough but when you are in this (with England) it is very hard to split your time and focus.
“No, I don’t know who these untouchables are, to be honest. I hope I’m one of them… I’m joking"#SixNations #ENGvFRAhttps://t.co/XPpWJ5pDRK
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“Being away with England you try and focus on that. In terms of having a clause, I wouldn’t know. I still feel like I want to go back and fight for Saracens. Like I said, I’d need to look into the contract stuff to be 100 per cent on that. Right now in this present moment, it’s very difficult to focus on two things at once. We have got a lot of work to do here at England and that takes up a lot of time but I do speak to some of the boys, see how they are and how things are going.”
Much of the debate at the start of the Six Nations was about how England’s Saracens contingent had no matches over the winter unlike players from the Premiership clubs. In between the Autumn Nations Cup final on December 6 and the Six Nations opener on February 6, Billy Vunipola was the only Saracens player to have any action, appearing in a Trailfinders Cup loss to Ealing.
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Mako Vunipola, meanwhile, was still managing the achilles injury that meant he was an eleventh-hour cry-off for the Nations final with the French. The accusation post-Scotland was that the Saracens players looked rusty but prop Vunipola – who made his return in the round two game versus Italy – now feels they are much better conditioned and lack of games isn’t an issue.
“You always feel like you need a few games to get back into it but I never felt that I needed that at the start. Personally, if called upon, I can do my role for the team and if we were undercooked then who is to say that we were going to get picked.
“The only person that decides whether we are undercooked or not ready for it is Eddie (Jones) and that is the person we listen to. As players, we are experienced enough to know our bodies, what is needed to be right to play. If we were undercooked, the only person that needs to make that call is Eddie. He is the boss and he makes that call but for us, it’s being ready to do our job for the team.”
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Finn previews Scotland vs Ireland and gives us an insight into the Scotland camp ?
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