Billy Vunipola leaves a trail of Exeter defenders in his wake in last week's win over Exeter Chiefs. Will Bath be able to contain the Saracens wrecking ball in tonight's Aviva Premiership match at The Rec? Check out Saturday's Times and Sunday's The Rugby Paper for my reports and analysis.
Showing posts with label Saracens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saracens. Show all posts
Friday, 1 April 2016
Monday, 15 February 2016
Saracens' defensive 'wolfpack' defanged by Wasps - Mark McCall reaction
Nevermind France beating Ireland in Paris, the shock result of the weekend was closer to home: Wasps' eight-try walloping of Premiership leaders Saracens at Saracens.
Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall gives his reaction to the 64-23 loss.
If we didn't know it already, Sunday's game confirmed that loose forward Nathan Hughes is one heck of a piece of kit
You certainly won't want to watch this if you're a Sarries fan, but if you're a Wasps supporter then make it your desktop:
Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall gives his reaction to the 64-23 loss.
If we didn't know it already, Sunday's game confirmed that loose forward Nathan Hughes is one heck of a piece of kit
You certainly won't want to watch this if you're a Sarries fan, but if you're a Wasps supporter then make it your desktop:
Highlights: @Saracens 23-64 @WaspsRugby. #AvivaPrem https://t.co/33730Gt1O5 pic.twitter.com/bsKtwJpHD2— BT Sport Rugby (@btsportrugby) February 14, 2016
Monday, 13 April 2015
Thursday, 6 March 2014
BOO, HISS. What's acceptable behaviour from rugby supporters?
The sporting arena has long been regarded as a furnace in which moral virtue can be knocked into shape. The ancient Greeks feted their Olympic heroes as ideals of human fortitude, while the 20th century French philosopher Albert Camus put it in a somewhat different way. “All that I know most surely about morality and obligations I owe to football,” he said, in between deep inhalations on filthily strong Gallic cigarettes.
Rugby is a sport that prides itself on values – traditional values of respect for the opposition, fair play and respect for the ref. Amid the value-free atmosphere that seems to pervade much of football, rugby is often celebrated as a healthy tonic.
Admirably, many professional clubs run their own community departments which seek to spread the word about the inclusive, friendly nature of rugby. But such acts of rugby evangelism have been undermined by recent events – some of them perpetrated by fans rather than players.
Rugby has long lost the moral high ground. We might not have had a top-flight manager head-butting an opposition player who was trying to retrieve the ball, but we’ve recently had gouging and spitting incidents aplenty, not to mention Manu Tuilagi’s series of full-blooded punches on Chris Ashton.
In recent weeks, we’ve had France number eight Louis Picamoles’ derisory gestures to referee Alain Rolland following his yellow-carding against Wales. (What would Camus have said?). Picamoles gave Rolland a sarcastic round of applause and thumbs-up when he was sin-binned.
It’s to the huge credit of France coach Phillipe Saint-Andre that he axed Picamoles from the French Six Nations squad as a result. Defending his decision, Saint-Andre said that he would not accept dissent to the referee.
Quite right too, but when I suggested such a thing on Twitter before Saint-Andre handed down his ban, you would have thought I’d called for Picamoles’ beheading. It was alleged that I was over-reacting.
I was surprised at the reaction. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been.
Last Friday at The Rec, a not inconsiderable number of Bath fans booed the Saracens players as the visitors applauded their travelling supporters.
Okay, Saracens were defensively abrasive and had played the entire match – particularly the second half – on the very edge of what the laws allow. and gone beyond them on occasion. But this response from a chunk of the home crowd was pathetic, boorish and eye-rollingly one-eyed.
Having established a first-half lead, Sarries killed the game off by smothering Bath with the equivalent of one long chokehold. It wasn’t what the home side wanted to see and it wasn’t superficially attractive, but it was extremely effective.
Saracens were aggressive and streetwise, and the way they clinically extracted the away win had its own beauty about it.
To boo them was embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as publicly undermining your own fly-half, which was what happened to Stephen Donald last season, who was subjected to various ironic cheers and jeers.
If Camus had seen Friday night’s activities, I’m sure he would have taken another thoughtful drag on his ciggie.
Thursday, 21 November 2013
Watch out One Direction! There could be a scrum for the Christmas number one
If One Direction started going to the gym, played with oval balls and grew 'taches, the result might be something like this:
And Saracens' Ben Ransom would surely have to be the frontman. Just look at those cherubic features. Watch out Harry Styles!
Wasps' Elliot Daly, meanwhile, looks like he missed his vocation as a RAF pilot. Chocks away, Wing Commander Daly!
To donate to Movember and raise money to support the fight against testicular and prostate cancer, go to http://uk.movember.com/donate
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| (l to r) Chris Bell, Ben Ransom, Elliot Daly, Will Fraser, James Haskell and Dylan Hartley show off their taches after a trip to a barbers in Covent Garden for Movember. Picture: Garry Bowden/Pinnacle |
And Saracens' Ben Ransom would surely have to be the frontman. Just look at those cherubic features. Watch out Harry Styles!
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| Picture: Garry Bowden/Pinnacle |
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| Picture: Garry Bowden/Pinnacle |
To donate to Movember and raise money to support the fight against testicular and prostate cancer, go to http://uk.movember.com/donate
Monday, 26 August 2013
Relegation dog fight? No chance, says Andy Saull - Falcons will be pushing for top six
I remember the first time I saw Andy Saull play rugby; he was a whirling dervish with tape strapped round his head. He charged about The Recreation Ground for Saracens as though his life depended on it, blending the athletic with the obstreperous. Sarries might have lost to Bath that afternoon in 2009, but Saull kept the home side on their toes throughout the encounter.
Four years on, Saull is still only 24, but has yet to pick up the England cap that many were predicting back in 2009 and 2010. After struggling to pin down the openside flanker berth at Sarries last season, he's now headed to Newcastle in search of more game time.
But he acknowledges he has his work cut out if he is to make the number 7 shirt his own at the Falcons - not least because his rival for the openside slot is the club's captain, Will Welch.
“For me, this season is about playing rugby regularly,” Saull tells me.
“Will Welch was captain here last season and he has been incredible in training so far.
“It’s about seeing whether I can share the 7 shirt with him – or get hold of it myself and do it justice.”
And the Falcons new boy says he has been impressed by a culture of ambition and confidence at Kingston Park, and is backing the Falcons to finish in the top half of the table in their first season back in the top flight.
“As a club I don’t see why we can’t be pushing for Heineken Cup rugby next season. Looking at the guys we’ve signed and the talent we have, I think that’s achievable,” he says.
“There is no lack of ambition, hunger and motivation at Newcastle Falcons. If we can get the squad atmosphere right and build those player connections quickly, then I’d be disappointed if we weren’t mid-table by Christmas.”
Four years on, Saull is still only 24, but has yet to pick up the England cap that many were predicting back in 2009 and 2010. After struggling to pin down the openside flanker berth at Sarries last season, he's now headed to Newcastle in search of more game time.
But he acknowledges he has his work cut out if he is to make the number 7 shirt his own at the Falcons - not least because his rival for the openside slot is the club's captain, Will Welch.
“For me, this season is about playing rugby regularly,” Saull tells me.
“Will Welch was captain here last season and he has been incredible in training so far.
“It’s about seeing whether I can share the 7 shirt with him – or get hold of it myself and do it justice.”
And the Falcons new boy says he has been impressed by a culture of ambition and confidence at Kingston Park, and is backing the Falcons to finish in the top half of the table in their first season back in the top flight.
“As a club I don’t see why we can’t be pushing for Heineken Cup rugby next season. Looking at the guys we’ve signed and the talent we have, I think that’s achievable,” he says.
“There is no lack of ambition, hunger and motivation at Newcastle Falcons. If we can get the squad atmosphere right and build those player connections quickly, then I’d be disappointed if we weren’t mid-table by Christmas.”
Thursday, 21 June 2012
Flat out with the repartee - sad day for one-liners as David Flatman retires
Here's David Flatman's valedictory interview with me as he hangs up his boots because of a hand injury. The high-esteem in which the former England, Saracens and Bath prop is held across the game - and by journalists - was captured brilliantly by my fellow south west sports writer Steve Cotton in a fine comment piece in the Western Daily Press. Well worth a read.
With a rapier-sharp wit and and a penetrating grasp of the game, Flats was always a joy at mid-week media sessions.
But us journos will still be bumping into him - he's taking up a post within Bath Rugby's communications department, where no doubt we'll all be subjected to his repartee in press conferences. To which I say: fantastic.
Flatman speaks at a press conference in 2009
With a rapier-sharp wit and and a penetrating grasp of the game, Flats was always a joy at mid-week media sessions.
But us journos will still be bumping into him - he's taking up a post within Bath Rugby's communications department, where no doubt we'll all be subjected to his repartee in press conferences. To which I say: fantastic.
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Are you happy now, Sir?
When a Premiership coach mutters the words “referee” and “criticism” in the same sentence, he is dipping his toes in very dangerous waters indeed.
As Saracens’ Brendan Venter and Sale’s Steve Diamond have learned over the past year, expressing one’s contempt for an official’s performance in a less than subtle way can lead to stiff punishment.
And quite right too. Once respect for the ref goes, respect for the opposition – and the broader game – can go up in a puff of smoke as well.
But things cannot be allowed to swing so far that a referee’s performance is beyond criticism and that is why Brad Davis’s remarks, in today’s Chronicle, are welcome.
Read the Bath first-team coach’s comments and you can feel the frustration – but there is sympathy for the referees’ situation, too. Goodness knows that refereeing a rugby match is a tall order. As an enterprise with more regulations than an EU bureaucrats’ banquet, one man cannot make the right call at every single point in an 80-minute game. The poor bloke only has one pair of eyes.
But that does not mean referees exist in an inner sanctum and are untouchable. If coaches believe a referee has mishandled a particular part of a game, and can deliver measured and cogent explanations as to why that is, then they should be free to voice those views at a post-match press conference. And while Davis’ suggestion that referees should make public mea culpas every time they have made a howler might sit uneasily with some, including me, I can sympathise with the general direction – if not the conclusion – of the argument.
A regime that required referees to hold their hands up could, over time, erode trust in those very officials it was designed to support. Rather than earning supporters’ respect, fans could well end up rolling their eyes and saying “He’s got it wrong again”.
There will be those who lament the fact that not all referees now receive the rather Victorian address of ‘sir’, although a number of professionals still use this.
But if there is to be greater trust in the way games are officiated, then I can suggest three measures to at least get the process going.
Firstly, there needs to be uniform coverage of matches by television match officials. You cannot have a situation where one match is covered by a TMO and another – which is of potentially equal significance to the league’s final shape – which does not give the ref the option of ‘going upstairs’.
Secondly, ensure the assistant referees – aka linesmen – do indeed assist the ref. Well- run games are invariably the product of a trio of officials working in harness, with the man in the middle constantly using the extra eyes and ears that are at his disposal.
Finally, the RFU should make public (perhaps on its website) an abbreviated version of the feedback that it gives to clubs about a referee’s performance. This would at least satisfy supporters that gripes are being addressed. It would also keep the game’s regulators and referees on their toes.
That should help keep the supporters onside, shouldn’t it, sir?
As Saracens’ Brendan Venter and Sale’s Steve Diamond have learned over the past year, expressing one’s contempt for an official’s performance in a less than subtle way can lead to stiff punishment.
And quite right too. Once respect for the ref goes, respect for the opposition – and the broader game – can go up in a puff of smoke as well.
But things cannot be allowed to swing so far that a referee’s performance is beyond criticism and that is why Brad Davis’s remarks, in today’s Chronicle, are welcome.
Read the Bath first-team coach’s comments and you can feel the frustration – but there is sympathy for the referees’ situation, too. Goodness knows that refereeing a rugby match is a tall order. As an enterprise with more regulations than an EU bureaucrats’ banquet, one man cannot make the right call at every single point in an 80-minute game. The poor bloke only has one pair of eyes.
But that does not mean referees exist in an inner sanctum and are untouchable. If coaches believe a referee has mishandled a particular part of a game, and can deliver measured and cogent explanations as to why that is, then they should be free to voice those views at a post-match press conference. And while Davis’ suggestion that referees should make public mea culpas every time they have made a howler might sit uneasily with some, including me, I can sympathise with the general direction – if not the conclusion – of the argument.
A regime that required referees to hold their hands up could, over time, erode trust in those very officials it was designed to support. Rather than earning supporters’ respect, fans could well end up rolling their eyes and saying “He’s got it wrong again”.
There will be those who lament the fact that not all referees now receive the rather Victorian address of ‘sir’, although a number of professionals still use this.
But if there is to be greater trust in the way games are officiated, then I can suggest three measures to at least get the process going.
Firstly, there needs to be uniform coverage of matches by television match officials. You cannot have a situation where one match is covered by a TMO and another – which is of potentially equal significance to the league’s final shape – which does not give the ref the option of ‘going upstairs’.
Secondly, ensure the assistant referees – aka linesmen – do indeed assist the ref. Well- run games are invariably the product of a trio of officials working in harness, with the man in the middle constantly using the extra eyes and ears that are at his disposal.
Finally, the RFU should make public (perhaps on its website) an abbreviated version of the feedback that it gives to clubs about a referee’s performance. This would at least satisfy supporters that gripes are being addressed. It would also keep the game’s regulators and referees on their toes.
That should help keep the supporters onside, shouldn’t it, sir?
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Blood, sweat and beers - and yoga
Yoga in the grounds of an immaculately maintained 120-acre estate. Welcome to pre-season training, Bath Rugby style.
The bulk of the Bath squad are now nearing the end of their second week of summer training – and there are still nine weeks to go before the first game of the campaign.
With such a long pre-season stretching ahead of them, the key for the strength and conditioning experts who lead such training is to ensure that a sense of tedium doesn’t creep in.
Flipping tyres, pushing sledges and hitting scrum machines are necessary elements in any pre-season programme – there’s no escaping the hard graft – but they cannot be the only ingredients.
To avert a sense of groundhog day, a few novelties have to be thrown in. On Tuesday afternoon, it was yoga time for some of the squad. Lycra, I believe, was optional.
Not that it’s all been about adopting the lotus and the downward-facing dog at Farleigh House.
Lock Stuart Hooper admitted the squad was, at times, being subjected to a whip- cracking regime of blood, sweat and tears.
“There hasn’t been much blood so far, there’s been a fair amount of sweat and no doubt there’s been a few tears in the evening when people have got home!” he said.
“It’s been hard but then it wouldn’t be a good pre-season if it wasn’t hard.”
The art of combining the nitty gritty with the refreshingly unusual is something Premiership champions Saracens have excelled at of late.
Whether it’s trips to German beer festivals or a couple of days with the Miami Dolphins, the management at Sarries know that a few non-traditional stimuli are needed to keep a squad on its toes, cohesive and hungry.
Bath appreciate this, too. Last season, there were sessions with firefighters at Bristol Airport, pictured, and an afternoon of swinging from trees.
More of this may prove a wise investment. As Sarries have shown, blood, sweat and beers really can work.
Monday, 8 March 2010
Boring, boring Saracens
Jason Robinson's first season as a coach isn't exactly a bed of roses, what with Sale sinking to the foot of the Guinness Premiership. But I've just started reading his autobiography, Finding My Feet, and I can't help being catapulted back to those great Billy Whizz on-field moments. You know the stuff: those scything Six Nations bursts, the try in the 2003 World Cup final, the skinning of Christophe Dominici.
A couple of days after I began reading Robinson's book, I travelled to Watford to cover Saracens' Guinness Premiership match with Bath. The contrast was stark. Here was my response in my weekly column for The Bath Chronicle:
At what price victory? If triumph on the rugby field comes at the expense of all entertainment, is there really any point in 30 blokes – and importantly, thousands of supporters – turning up for a match?
Much has been made this season of the style of play that Brendan Venter has been cultivating at Saracens. The South African director of rugby has been seeking to emulate the kind of approach that his national side has honed over the past couple of years: get your backs chasing the high ball, tackle your opponents hard, and slot over the penalty kicks when the other chaps creak.
It is a game-plan that gave Sarries, for a brief period in the first half of this season, an aura of muscular invincibility. But the cracks are now beginning to show in this remorselessly and tediously one-dimensional style of play.
Sarries' problem is that they aren't prepared to deviate from Plan A, not even for a second. They are in a tactical straitjacket, and instead of playing what's in front of them, they are playing like automatons, doing only what they have been ordered to do by the uncompromising Dr Venter.
It's one thing to read how achingly boring Saracens are, it is another thing altogether to watch how achingly boring Saracens are.
Saracens have a more-than-decent inside centre in Brad Barritt, the England Saxons midfielder. But his fly-half Derick Hougaard, as far as I could observe, didn't once opt to use him during Bath's visit to Vicarage Road on Sunday. Instead, Hougaard put high ball after high ball up into the air, balls which Matt Banahan and Nick Abendanon were more than equal to.
"Throughout the whole game they never threw one backline play at us," said Banahan to me yesterday. " I don't think our 12 or 13 made a tackle the whole game. It shows how negative their structure is."
Saracens 10-man style of rugby doesn't even play to their strengths at the moment. With a pack enervated by Six Nations absentees and the odd injury, they don't have the muscle to turn the screws at the breakdown. Moreover, it reduces to close to zero the attacking opportunities for such fleet-footed backs as full-back Alex Goode, whose career would surely be better served by him joining a club with a more open style. Bath, for example.
When Jason Robinson first dipped his toe in the waters of union in 1996, he spent the rugby league off-season at The Rec.
When the then Bath coach, Brian Ashton, opted to play the speedster at full-back, he bet Robinson – not known for his fondness of the boot – that he would be forced to make at least one kick.
Robinson ran everything out of his own 22 and Ashton lost his little wager.
Few would question Sarries' potential. But they need to leaven their kicking game with a smidgen of Robinson's spirit of '96.
A couple of days after I began reading Robinson's book, I travelled to Watford to cover Saracens' Guinness Premiership match with Bath. The contrast was stark. Here was my response in my weekly column for The Bath Chronicle:
At what price victory? If triumph on the rugby field comes at the expense of all entertainment, is there really any point in 30 blokes – and importantly, thousands of supporters – turning up for a match?
Much has been made this season of the style of play that Brendan Venter has been cultivating at Saracens. The South African director of rugby has been seeking to emulate the kind of approach that his national side has honed over the past couple of years: get your backs chasing the high ball, tackle your opponents hard, and slot over the penalty kicks when the other chaps creak.
It is a game-plan that gave Sarries, for a brief period in the first half of this season, an aura of muscular invincibility. But the cracks are now beginning to show in this remorselessly and tediously one-dimensional style of play.
Sarries' problem is that they aren't prepared to deviate from Plan A, not even for a second. They are in a tactical straitjacket, and instead of playing what's in front of them, they are playing like automatons, doing only what they have been ordered to do by the uncompromising Dr Venter.
It's one thing to read how achingly boring Saracens are, it is another thing altogether to watch how achingly boring Saracens are.
Saracens have a more-than-decent inside centre in Brad Barritt, the England Saxons midfielder. But his fly-half Derick Hougaard, as far as I could observe, didn't once opt to use him during Bath's visit to Vicarage Road on Sunday. Instead, Hougaard put high ball after high ball up into the air, balls which Matt Banahan and Nick Abendanon were more than equal to.
"Throughout the whole game they never threw one backline play at us," said Banahan to me yesterday. " I don't think our 12 or 13 made a tackle the whole game. It shows how negative their structure is."
Saracens 10-man style of rugby doesn't even play to their strengths at the moment. With a pack enervated by Six Nations absentees and the odd injury, they don't have the muscle to turn the screws at the breakdown. Moreover, it reduces to close to zero the attacking opportunities for such fleet-footed backs as full-back Alex Goode, whose career would surely be better served by him joining a club with a more open style. Bath, for example.
When Jason Robinson first dipped his toe in the waters of union in 1996, he spent the rugby league off-season at The Rec.
When the then Bath coach, Brian Ashton, opted to play the speedster at full-back, he bet Robinson – not known for his fondness of the boot – that he would be forced to make at least one kick.
Robinson ran everything out of his own 22 and Ashton lost his little wager.
Few would question Sarries' potential. But they need to leaven their kicking game with a smidgen of Robinson's spirit of '96.
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