Saracens
SARACENS ALL-TIME ALL-STARS TEAM
By Neville
June 22 2016
“ Cher lecteur, mon frere etc. it is now time to choose my Saracens team. And as before the selection is based on the best game or two that I saw, in person or on TV, each individual player play in our colours. I've been supporting the club now for 20 years and I don't go back before that time in this selection. So wonderful players like John Buckton, for instance just don't get a look in. I'm afraid. And there are others too that I'll have to miss out. I carried out this exercise a couple of years ago, but things have changed even from then.
15. Thomas Castaignede.
Not even Alex Goode on current form could oust Le Petit Thomas from this jersey. A legend in his own dejeuner. Nothing more need be said, except that he was an absolute genius when at his best.
I would love to see him in the current team. And a couple of years ago, he showed that he could certainly still play when performing a forward roll to score a try. He never quite did that in his playing days. But he could get from the in goal area to the halfway line in the same time it took me to bend down, pick up a pint and look up again. He would be wonderful on our surface.
14. Chris Ashton
Quite why he is not in the England squad I have no idea. The bloke has been on fire the last few years and any issues that he is said to have had with his game have now been firmly resolved. His defence has improved, and his kicking is occasionally brilliant. Yes, occasionally he is a bit petulant, but you can't have a bloke as off the wall as that on your side are not expect him to behave similarly.
Still possesses searing pace and his running lines have rewritten the book. I'm pleased for us he's got a summer off, because next summer, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was wearing a Lions shirt
13. Philippe Sella.
I know Duncan has come on leaps and bounds this year, but there are some players who transcend the normal bounds of their position and my choice at outside centre is such a one. Even though he was 93 years of age when he played for us he was still consistently brilliant and I will never forget the try he scored against Wasps that set the tone for what was to come in the 1997 cup final.
Rounding his man who was half his age, almost he left the bloke in his wake. They broke the mould.
12. Tim Horan.
What a centre partnership they would have made. We didn't even see the best of Tim at our club, except for glimpses. A break out of nowhere and searing acceleration in an away game against Bath. For instance. Of course Brad Barrett is the cornerstone of our team but this is fantasy and for me, Tim Horan is one of the best inside centres ever to have laced up a jockstrap. His own of course.
11. David Strettle.
Now here's a funny thing, because three or four years ago I was telling my son that the bloke drove me mad. How many times that he had the line at his mercy only to do something daft like stop and light a cigarette, look for support when all we had to do was carry on running. It seemed as though he had an aversion to scoring and for someone so abundantly talented, and possessing when the mood was on him preternatural pace, what the xxx was he doing.
And then a couple of years ago he started to play to his full abilities and became for me the complete wing three-quarter. Scoring the most outrageous tries by leaping into the air and twisting himself inside out and landing the ball balanced in his fingertips. Some wonderful finishes and a genuine team man as well, which you can't say for many wingers. He should have been a shoo-in for England, but took the euro in Clermont, where he set the place on fire. I think he's been injured for a while, but I hope we see him back soon and I hope next time we play Clermont in Europe, that he decides to have the day off.
10. God. A.k.a. Michael Lynagh.
We have been blessed with several bloody good fly halves in the last few years. Glenda. Charlie and now the increasingly imperious Owen. But this wasn't even close. Michael Lynagh was every bit as good as any other contemporary fly half and a damn sight better than most. We were lucky to have him even for a few years at the end of his career.
9. Richard Wigglesworth
“Wot, no Nice but Dim”I hear you ask. Well, it was close but Wiggy has proven his class at the highest club level week after week this year. His laser guided box kicks will be chased by our wingers to the death and if he puts a few up on the oppositions blindside, I think we might be in business. He has been wonderful and for me utterly deserves his place, even over NDK, who remains amazing even after all these years. But if someone carries out this exercise in three or four years. I wonder if there will be another name at nine. Ben Spencer shows immense promise. His try at Toulouse, for instance.
8. Billy Vunipola.
When we played Munster at home this year Billy did to them what Paul O'Connell and friends had been doing to others for years. He dominated them physically. He more or less beat them on his own AND, seemingly, he does that, or something akin every week to everybody. He really needs the summer off because he's been held together by sticky tape in the last few weeks but he still has never taken a backward step. I do fear for his health. However, you know what's coming with our Billy, I suspect, when you play against him. But what are you supposed to do about it? Not only that but he is a complete player too like his brother. We are lucky to have him and he replaces the estimable Tony Diprose in my lineup
7. Jacques Burger.
Who will ever forget what he did against Clermont in the quarter-final a couple of years ago. 27 tackles. Was it? In less than a full game. If memory serves. A feral, elemental, visceral and astonishing performance. But then, whenever he played, he seemed to play with that level of commitment that gets comfortably into my lineup. Holds the record in the premiership for the number of tackles in a game, against Exeter, which stands at 357 I think. That may not be quite right. But if it isn't, you could almost believe it of him. And anyway, he is in because I want to see him laying into Chris Jack. Not to mention Mr Lewis.
6. Richard Hill.
The King no, the Emperor. The complete wing forward, bar none, with knobs on. And there will never be anybody who gets anywhere near to him. Never ever ever.
It bears repeating that I saw him arrive twice at a breakdown before the play had even broken down. He had to stand and wait for the breakdown to occur right next to him. And on one occasion he laughed. Presumably at his own genius. Amazing, and he is at number six. Not just because he can play right across the back row, but because I want someone else at seven
5. Maro Itoje
Beat Bath single-handed, earlier this year. Came on in the second half and, as someone of this parish, said quite rightly “decided we were going to win”. And I wonder how many games this year we would not have won had he not been playing. Analysis of his performance in a rugby magazine someone kindly posted on our parish website, has left me reeling. To cover that much ground and do so many things in a game. I thought all you had to do was jog round after everybody else, but apparently not. The bloke is a phenomenon. Eddie Jones seems to be about to ask him to play at number six against Australia. He has never let anybody down. And has always exceeded expectations. And as has been said, the frightening thing is that he's only going to improve.
4. George Kruis.
Not only is he a lineout king in a very good side at a very young age, he also charges around the field, putting himself about in a way that some of the old locks from years back, must look on with consternation. He never stops. He just keeps running, hitting rocks, charging out of the line to try and charge down a halfback's kick etc etc. A phenomenal player and another one who is likely only to get better. That I know nothing about second row players is clear from the above, and I'm not sure which way round these blokes play. But as a selector I’m inclined to leave it to them. I certainly wouldn't argue with them!
3. Cobus Visagie.
The Rock. Still the best scrummager I have ever seen. Week on week, taking apart the opposition sometimes almost literally eviscerating their scrum. Of course, as time went by, he was less of a force round the field than he had been, and perhaps even as Petrus and certainly Juan are now. But a props job is to prop. And this bloke could prop like nobody else.
2. Schalk Brits.
Has torn up the manual entitled “How to play Hooker” and rewritten it from cover to cover. And it's now in several volumes:-
Volume 1. The Hooker qua Hooker
Volume 2 , the Hooker as centre three-quarter…..Or full-back or fly half.
The bloke for me is a phenomenon. And though it may be that Jamie George will supplant him as our number one over the course of the next seasons, Schalla’s performances in the big games at the end of the season, show that he was still a massive force in our club. The break he made for one of our tries in the Premiership final being a case in point.
1.Mako Vunipola.
Whatever scrummaging issues he may or may not have had a few years ago, someone saw something in him as a youngster to make him a British Lion: at a very tender age for a prop; and they were right to do so. He has the all court game of a back at times, almost, and in the last couple of years been taking apart some of the best tight heads in Europe. Though it is always tempting to pair Cobus with Kevin Yates, especially now as we know, as I had suspected for years that he never wore contact lenses, Mako is a formidably complete modern prop. Frankly, he is a shoo-in”.
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Stumbleupon22/06/2016 13:27
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2016:07:10:20:08:03 by Darraghgirl.
Really good read
Agree completely about Stretts. For years he used to p*** me off for not scoring when scoring was easier than not, and then suddenly he changed himself into the best finisher England have had since Cohen was at his best.
For what it's worth I might have put Borthers in. Steve was completely central in turning our club around from being no hopers to the best team in Europe (query- the world?!).
Pretty good how many of our current bunch are in an all time XV!
In terms of individual performances, Billy v Munster was awesome, Jacques v Clermont was superfluous, Lynah v Newcastle all those years ago was special, but nothing will ever ever top Schalk Brits in the Premiership Final 2011. I have never and doubt I will ever see a better individual performance than that.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016:06:22:15:14:04 by #wolfpack.
Don't think Goodey has to do too much more before getting ahead of the very mercurial one.
And I would have chosen Glenda over Lynagh, but that would be because I never actually got to see Lynach in Sarries colours
Gavin Johnson, maybe, but where to fit MTC in?
Mind you, Muna Ebugalame taught Stretts all he knows!
It's a long time since Sports network paid anything!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016:06:27:10:19:38 by TonyTaff.
HRHRH was the fourth Saracen in that team too
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