By Jason Harris
March 13 2003

Saracens head coach Wayne Shelford has once again tinkered with his back division for Sunday's visit to Vicarage Road of London Wasps. Only wings Darragh O'Mahony and Richard Haughton keep their places after Sarries' disappointing performance at Bath on 1 March Shelford explained his selection on the official Saracens website:

"Thomas (Castaignede) and Nicky (Little) will combine at fly half and inside centre with Ben (Johnston) in at outside centre. I think the back line will give us a strong defence, and we'll need this to cope with the attacking Wasps loose forwards as they really enjoy penetrating in midfield.

"Tim Horan will play full back on Sunday and I'm sure that his experience and angles of running will benefit the rest of the line in this slot.

This is the first time for Niki Little to play in the centre at Saracens and this new-look is the latest in many experiments by the former All Black as he tries to find a winning formula behind the scrum.

Tim Horan returns to fullback just over a year after his ill-fated game in that position when Saracens were uncerimoniously dumped out of the 2002 Parker Pen Shield by unfancied Pontypridd.

The remaining changes are Kyran Bracken returning at scrum half to replace Morgan Williams, Ben Johnston at outside centre for Castaignede who in turn replaces Andy Goode who is demoted to the bench.

The forwards see only two changes as Tony Roques comes in blind side flanker in place of Ryan Peacey and veteran lock Abdel Benazzi makes way for the up-and-coming Stuart Hooper.

Even though there have been a raft of changes, Shelford believes that the team's preparation this week has been good and that doing the basics right could help Sarries spring a surprise on their high-flying visitors.


"We've prepared well and as I've said before, we're encouraging the players to think about their performance and not the result. If we work to make every pass accurate, don't miss tackles, scrummage well and so on, the results will come.

A full match preview will follow shortly on www.thesaracens.com

Saracens squad to face London Wasps at Vicarage Road, Sunday 16 March. Kick-off 3pm.


15 Tim Horan*
14 Richard Haughton
13 Ben Johnston*
12 Nicky Little*
11 Darragh O'Mahony*
10 Thomas Castaignede*
9 Kyran Bracken* (CAPT)

1 Christian Califano*
2 Robbie Russell*
3 Mike Storey
4 Craig Yandell
5 Stuart Hooper
6 Tony Roques
7 Richard Hill*
8 Kris Chesney

Replacements:

16 Johnny Marsters*, 17 Matt Cairns, 18 Ben Skirving, 19 Ben Russell, 20 Dan Kirton, 21 Andy Goode, 22 Nathan McAvoy
*denotes international