Favourite Saracen

Just a popularity contest nothing more, nothing less.  As you’re all grown adults unless you’re gay or female this award is a little bit creepy if you ask me…

Individual stalkers votes go Smith, Joubert, Marshall, Moses, Haughton and Goode.  Well done guys, restraining orders are probably needed sooner rather than later, not you Richard, you’ll probably be alright moving to Wycombe.

The man in second place is probably scary enough to look after himself, I mean have you seen Jacques Burger tackle?  You wouldn’t want to get too close now would you?  He probably keeps Lions as pets, eats raw meat and runs into brick walls between tackling practice.

However there is one player that is so popular he’d need an equivalent amount of security as the G20 summit.  As welcome as Saracens as he would at a BBQ for the readers of thesaracens.co.uk the permanently smiling Shalk Brits is the most popular Saracen this year.

Winner                         Shalk Brits

2^nd                               Jacques Burger

3^rd                                Alex Goode, Justin Marshall

Best Performance by an Opposition player

Eight different players were nominated for this award.

The Leicester trio of Flood, Castrogiovanni and Cole have twice been the architects of our downfall.  Dan Cole almost single handedly destroying our scrum on the first loss of the season, Castrogiovanni destroying it a second time and then doing a pretty passable impression of an inside centre for the rest of the game. Toby Flood described by one voter as “a pain, last term, for Newcastle, and not even Cockerill has spoilt him.”  twice ran the show behind a scrum that was marching forward.  Quite why Flood isn’t allowed to show the same freedom in a white shirt is beyond me…

Craig Newby, Soane Tonga’uiha, Charlie Hodgson and Chris Latham all attracted your attention at some point in the season but only Tonga’uiha’s vote was in victory (LV Cup).   Perhaps it says it all that the flair players that attracted your attention we’re in games when we were playing some of most dire but effective rugby, and there wasn’t much to watch from the men in black except for the ball to be a danger to the circling air traffic going into Heathrow

There is a clear winner however, when Saracens had just started to turn the tide and we’re throwing the ball around like a bunch of Fiji 7’s experts even in really muddy conditions we came up against a young fly half learning his trade at full back (sound familiar?!).  Despite learning the hard way about the step up from age group rugby when Chris Wyles swatted him away for one try, he kicked absolutely everything on offer for Gloucester. It was really a very impressive performance from the 19 year old Freddie Burns.  One to watch for the future.

Winner                        Freddie Burns

2^nd                               Toby Flood & Dan Cole

3^rd                                Martin Castrogiovanni

Worst Performance by an Opposition player

It’s not really Rugby is it?  I mean to have an award that shamelessly mocks our opponents who have had stinkers over the season… But it isn’t rugby, it’s an end of the season poll.  So both barrels are primed and ready to blast.

Ugo Monye is first in the firing line, the England winger was used as an emergency full back by Harlequins at the start of the season and ran around like Mr Magoo arms flapping as he dropped up and under after up and under.  I blame Monye for Saracens spending the next 10 games hoofing the ball up in there air hoping they would come across a Fullback quite so lacking as poor old Ugo… Still Martin Johnson saw enough in his performance that he played him at 15 for England the following week.

Dylan Hartley gets a vote for being Dylan Hartley I imagine. Chris Ashton gets several more for his match losing performance in the Semi Final where when he wasn’t running up blind alleys stopping Northampton winning drop goals, he was dashing out of defensive line allowing Saracens scores, and coughing up penalties at regular intervals.

Votes came for Ryan Davis and Shane Geraghty for their incredibly prowess or lack thereof with the boot. While the one voter saw Danny Care took as vote “for every good thing he did at Wembley he did three bad things”

But there can be only one, cast your minds back, way back to the very start  of the season, a young man was making his debut for his new club. Great things were expected of him at a club that would suit his style, so who would have thought that after such a debut that Ryan Lamb would be dropped from the side by Christmas for a pretty ordinary journeyman?  You did?  As did the other 65,000 people there for the double header?  Oh.

“It’s a long time ago, but Ryan Lamb was execrable at HQ. No-one else has come close.”

“A case of getting ones comeuppance!”

“Ryan Lamb had a debut that away fans dream off, couldn’t kick, couldn’t tackle, couldn’t pass”

“It’s fine being a nasty little player giving the lip to the bigger forwards, badgering the referee and giving the crowd some stick but you need the game to go with it. As the Americans say  Ryan Lamb didn’t have Game  at Twickers”

Winner                         Ryan Lamb

2^nd                                Ugo Monye

3^rd                                Chris Ashton

Least Favourite Opposition Player

Dan Hipkiss had several votes which is not down to the way he conducts himself on the pitch but more the fact that the ‘Dave Berry alike’ only allowed us 45 seconds of celebration before snuffing out any dreams we had at the end of the season.

Matt Banahan gets a few votes for presumably being totally unable to tackle and having skin that resembles a bad Hawaiian shirt, while Ryan Lamb gets several votes for being a nasty little player and now not having much of game to fall back on either 

Soane Tonga’huia doesn’t finish as high as expected probably to do it being as entertaining watching him sprint around the field as he is quickly as he run’s away from a legally binding contracts.

With two minutes to go against Bath at the Rec, Michael Claassens took a quick tap penalty five metres out and proceeded to knock the ball forward. Turning around as any wizened old scrum half whose hands aren’t as quick as they used to be but whose brain is functioning, pointed to a random fatty in an opposition shirt and called foul.  The referee clearly seeing a once great player now with the handling ability of the Old Reigation 6^th XV prop decided to help hide his embarrassment by yellow carding Rhys Gill. The Bath attack came to nothing. Saracens won and Michael Claassens takes 2^nd place in the least favourite opposition player poll.

Dylan Hartley is the winner by a long way, maybe because he has that funny squint thing going on, maybe it’s because he likes a bit of a scrap or perhaps because he acts like a teenager whose been told he has to tidy his room all hands on hips and shrugs of the shoulders… or more than likely it’s because he decided to lecture Saracens on good sportsmanship, which is a bit like Brendan Venter offering advice to others as to how to stay on the good side of the RFU

Winner                         Dylan Hartley

2^nd                                Michael Claassens

3^rd                                Soane Tonga’huia

Which Player would you like to see sign for Saracens next season

Quite obvious where you see our weaknesses, four props are mentioned in the list of players you’d like to see running out at the double header.  Soane Tonga’huia, Gethin Jenkins, Ben Alexander and old boy Census Johnston were all nominated as people you wanted to see pack down at Saracens.

Replacing Glen Jackson seemed to be the next thing on all of your minds with a selection of the great and the good of fly halves and fullbacks presumably so Alex Goode can play at 10?  Juan Martin Hernandez, Mils Muiliana, Toby Flood were all mentioned.  One hopeful supporter also suggested Glen Jackson to come out of retirement to sign on for another stint!

However there was one player that compiled the most amount of votes who was neither a prop or a fly half/fullback.  It’s clearly less about fulfilling urgent Saracens needs but much more about just recognising that we’d like to have such a young talent on our books.

Ben Youngs is the player most would like to have in a Saracens shirt next season.

Winner                         Ben Youngs

2^nd                                Census Johnston

3^rd                                Toby Flood

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