Saracens
Falcons Disrespect Claim Backfires
PNH
By Innings
January 27 2014
Before this game the Falcons and Sarries rugbynetwork boards spent some time debating whether Sarries had dissed Falcons by putting on a game against South African visitors Sharks to take place the day before. However, in truth, for this game Sarries put out pretty much exactly the side they would have done regardless of the Sharks distraction. The proof of disrespect would come if the Falcons could pull off one of their rare recent wins and only the second ever upset at AzP.
The first half was frankly pretty awful. Falcons had little to offer beyond spoiling tactics, and Sarries were forced into attritional and unattractive rugby. Falcons were quickly on the wrong side of Mr MacDonald’s whistle, giving away penalties on every Sarries excursion into their territory, three early offerings gratefully taken, giving Sarries kicker Ben Spencer his first points of a haul of 21 for the day. Falcons lock Sean Tomes was in the vanguard of most of his side’s negative play, and in truth he was largely responsible for Sarries scoreboard successes until one lapse too many saw him early into the bin.
Whilst Sarries ran up their total through penalties, Falcons were living on scraps. A barrage of fairly aimless kicks scarcely troubled a very safe Ben Ransom at 15, and the tactic of trying to run through the Sarries central defence, not usually a first choice option for our opponents, gave our defence some tackling practice but little threat to Sarries try line. The first decent chance came their way as Sarries made one of their few unforced errors, giving a chance for a right to left movement and a good finish by speedy winger Tom Catterick, not converted by Joel Hodgson, the man most offended by the disrespect theory. However, he did kick three points from a penalty to take his side to within a point as the half wore on. However, with the under-powered Falcons pack struggling against the strong Sarries front row, Spencer re-opened the gap to end the half at 15-8.
The second half saw the Falcons struggling ever more obviously as the power and pace of the hosts began to tell. Spencer and Ransom continued to play well above the visitors’ standard, and now we saw Nick Tompkins and Tim Streather working very well together, troubling their opponents with almost every touch of the ball. Jack Wilson and Nathan Earle were hungry for work and both made good attacking runs as they took advantage of the service coming from the base of the set-piece. One must mention Nils Mordt here. He was having to handle too many passes to his ankles as Spencer seemed to lose his range, whether because he was finding it hard to control the wet ball or because he was being harried by the Falcons back row. Mordt took all in his stride, playing one of the calm, controlled games that he seems to produce more often than his critics allow. Some of his kicking from hand was inch-perfect despite the swirling wind that seems to a regular part of the AzP experience.
A good passage opened the second half, with debutant Nick de Jager unable to hold onto a scoring pass. However, he made up for that minutes later with a burst that set up the move to lead to Sarries first try. He was to be awarded MotM at the end.
Up front, Jackson Wray was beginning to play like a man possessed, being everywhere, in attack with powerful carries and support, in defence with a most solid stopping game. It was no surprise that he was the man at hand to finish the first and second tries for Sarries, five minutes apart, either side of the 50 minute mark.
The pack was becoming totally dominant, apart from the line-out, where one or two set-pieces went awry. James Johnson and Rhys Gill saw off their starting opposite numbers and stayed the full 80 to maintain dominance. Jared Saunders and Scott Spurling will have harder days at the office than this one. Hayden Smith, even more physically imposing on his return from New York, worked the line-out well, and put in some very substantial grunt work in defence, although I thought that at the end of his shift he was uncomfortably aware of the fitness differences between rugby and the gridiron game. In fact, all the Sarries players were going well as the Falcons offering wore itself out against a stronger and more team-like home side.
Streather and Tompkins began to cut holes in the Falcons central defence. One remarkable break by Streather saw him clear behind the defenders, but with too much work to do. A dexterous off-load to Ransom saw the third try, giving hopes of the bonus point that had to be in Sarries sights as the LV approaches the last round of pool games and home advantage is to be achieved.
As the clock touched the 80 minute mark another break, this time by Tompkins out of a couple of innocuous tackle attempts, took play to the try-line, where replacement Tom Jubb, celebrating his 21st birthday, forced his way over for the necessary fourth try.
At the end, this had been a match of two very different halves. For 40 minutes a spirited but essentially limited effort by Falcons caused frustration for both teams and their supporters, but living on the limit gave Sarries far too many opportunities, all taken gratefully by Spencer. For the second 40 the effort had taken too much out of the young Falcons, and Sarries had another comfortable win. It will have been another long drive home to Newcastle.
Mr MacDonald had a very sound game. Nobody ever agrees with every decision, but he handled this game well, and the lack of TMO was a blessing, meaning that we had no need to wait around endlessly for confirmations of what all too often is the glaringly obvious.
As a scribe, this is my fifth effort. In those five matches, Sarries have scored 258 points, with the lowest being 40 against the Falcons in the home AP fixture. The opponents’ aggregate score from the five matches is 30, with only Tigers managing to get into double figures. I have lost count of the tries scored, but clearly Boring, Boring Sarries find that AzP and the faster game on the artificial surface suits their new freedom of thought and action. A few pundits lament the lack of mud and puddles that we saw on the televised games this weekend, but I am not one of them. Rugby can be a game of sublime skill or it can be a boring slogging match. AzP makes the former possible, every game, and perhaps that is why 5,559 supporters turned up, despite the atrocious weather forecast, to watch two sides largely composed of development players and reserves put on another 50-point game.
But the last word, for me, belongs to a group who are already seen to be an important part of the Sarries family – the Pioneers. They were out in the rain as we arrived, welcoming, helpful and proving again that as the first contact with Sarries that visitors notice, they are a wonderful statement of what the Sarries family is all about.
SARACENS
15.Ransom 14.Wilson 13.Streather 12.Tompkins 11.Earle 10.Mordt 9.Spencer 1.Gill 2.Saunders (Spurling) 3.Johnston 4.Smith (Jubb) 5.Sherriff 6.De Jaegar (Itoje) 7.Hankin 8. Wray
NEWCASTLE
15.Hammersley 14.Catterick 13.Barnes 12.Crockett 11.Kibirigie 10.Hodgson 9.Pilgrim 1.Montanella 2.McGuigan 3.Tomaszczyk 4.Tomes 5.Young 6.Morris 7.Temm 8.York
SCORE Saracens 41 Newcastle 8
Saracens: Tries: Wray (2) Ransom, Jubb Conv: Spencer (3) Pens: Spencer (5)
Newcastle: Try: Catterick, Pen: Hodgson
Attendance: 5,559
Referee Greg Macdonald
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Stumbleupon27/01/2014 21:40
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2014:02:06:11:45:01 by TonyTaff.
I suspect their FH wishes that he had never spoken to that journalist.
Regardez mon visage. Suis-je bovvered?
Enough defence of what I wrote. My view is simple: plenty of proper writers write up the game as a record of what happened, so there's no point in re-hashing all that. I write my take on the game, trying to give a view from the stands that encompasses the experience of the game and its context. That means I'm as likely to write about the pre-match, the Laverstoke pies, the song, the referee or some aspect of play as I am to try to record the exact order of every passage of play and score.
Innings
Points win matches: tries win hearts and minds.
It's a long time since Sports network paid anything!
Quote:As a scribe, this is my fifth effort. In those five matches, Sarries have scored 258 points, with the lowest being 40 against the Falcons in the home AP fixture. The opponents’ aggregate score from the five matches is 30, with only Tigers managing to get into double figures.
In other words, you volunteer as scribe for all remaining games...
Quote:Innings
As I wrote: 'spent some time debating'. That is not an accusation that everyone was on the same side of the debate, nor is it a suggestion that anyone was right or wrong in their opinions. It remains a bald statement of fact. The next sentence summed up the original suggestion fairly impartially.
Apologies if came across as some form of rebuke, Innings. I was aiming to record the fact that the Falcons fans had been entirely objective about the supposed disrespect. And yes, no point in writing a report that mimics what you may find in any number of newspapers.
Regardez mon visage. Suis-je bovvered?
My next turn with the quill pen is the Irish game on Sunday week. My regular 40 point winning margin will come under pressure, so the 16th men in the stands will be called upon for a good day at AzP to cheer on the MiB(&R).
Innings
Points win matches: tries win hearts and minds.
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