By BrianC
November 5 2003

This weekend sees us travelling to Watford to play Saracens at Vicarage Road. In recent years Saracens have struggled to stamp their mark on the Zurich premiership. Last year they were in the relegation dogfight along with ourselves and others.

Saracens vs London Irish

Sunday 9th November 2003, Vicarage Road, K.O. 3.00 pm

Unlike ourselves, Bath and Bristol their season did not come down to the last day.  Thanks to good late season victories against Wasps, Bristol they were out of danger by then. With victory over Sale on the 10th May they ended up one position ahead of us, in 8th place.

Before the start of the season some of the Sarries supporters were expressing misgivings about the strength of their squad for this season, particularly in light of the fact that they have six players down under to the RWC. These doubts appear to have had some foundation as Sarries have indeed had a fairly poor start to the season. Of their eight games thus far they have won three, drawn one and lost four. In common with Rotherham they share the dubious distinction of being the only team who have not yet picked up a bonus point. To make matters worse they have had two points deducted for fielding an illegible player, currently they are tenth in the table with twelve points.  Given Rotherham's parlous position at the bottom of the table they are almost certainly safe from relegation, that is perhaps the best that can be said about their season thus far.

Last season we managed a double over Sarries. Their team selection was heavily criticised after our 32 - 10 victory at the Madejski in September, our first victory of the season. In April, after a string of four defeats we managed to scrape a 12 - 14 at Vicarage road. Had we lost that game we could well now be playing ND1 rugby.

The London Irish side that beat Sale last weekend looked impressive. Tight scoreline and nail biting end aside it struck me as being much more like the team we knew from the victorious 2001/2 season than last. Unlike some earlier games in the season both ball retention and discipline were good. Bearing in mind our start to the season was tough, with five victories from our eight starts the confidence in the camp must be high.

Injuries are starting to effect all teams, the two participants in this game are no exceptions. This week we have learned that O'Sheasby has a fractured eye and will be out for at least three months. There is still no word from the club on the injury that Tofty picked up the weekend before but given the nature of his injury it may well be some weeks before we see his return. We are indeed fortunate that in Spud Murphy and Barry we currently have top class replacements available to us. Saracens, already weakened by RWC call ups, were hit last week with the news that their centre Mark Bartholomeusz was out for six weeks. The Fez boys squad currently reports six other injured players including Alex Codling and Thomas Castaignede. 

The Saracens pack was dominated by Wasps two weeks ago. The match report on the Fez Boys site describes the Saracens performance as 'dismal' as they lost 3 - 42. Our pack, should look to similarly dominate the game. If they can manage that there appears to be no reason we should not run out winners on Sunday.