By The Saracens
November 20 2024

Saturday sees a return to the Premiership Cup. The Cup has a different format this year so here is a quick summary: The 10 Premiership clubs and the top 10 Championship clubs compete in 5 leagues of 4 teams (2 from each), playing each other home and away. (thank goodness – at least it makes the whole thing a bit more comprehensible and it means clubs benefit themselves if they manage to stop their opponents getting bonus points).  The pool winners and the top 3 runners up go through to a straight knockout quarter final at the end of Feb with teams being seeded according to performance (the 3 runners up will be seeds 6.7 & 8). So all but the worst pool winner will get a home quarter final. The winners of the first 2 quarter finals get a home semi and those 2 then play a final. Interestingly the 2 Championship clubs which were excluded (Cambridge who finished 11 and Chinnor who were newly promoted) decided to hold a 2-legged “not the Premiership Cup” tie between themselves in protest. (As we stand Chinnor won the home leg 33-24 with the return due next weekend I believe)

So what all this means is that defeat to Trailfinders in R1 isn’t terminal although we do need to beat pool leaders Quins at home (they have maximum points from 2 games) to give ourselves a chance. It will be interesting to see on Saturday what sort of team both sides put out (the players having had a week off this weekend).

The Championship clubs, understandably have been fielding strong teams. Sarries were down to a B/C side for the first 2 games. Quins fielded Joe Launchbury & Leigh Halfpenny against Trailfinders. They managed 2 closeish wins against the 2 championship sides but still taking 10 points. Sarries of course demolished Scottish (but you still only get 5 points) but fell apart against Trailfinders. So this leaves Sarries in 3^rd place behind Quins and Trailfinders. If they are serious (and are they?) about this competition, then only a win will do in the last 4 games.

I assume we’ll see a similar side to that which trounced Scottish unless MMc wants to give the likes of Fergus Burke (and I really hope the Premiership break has allowed him to make a full recovery) a bit of match practice. It’s not something he often does although we did see the welcome return of Ollie Hartley in the last game.

Should be a toughie. Forecast isn’t promising: wet and windy! Oh Joy! As I’m making a slow recovery from a very nasty virus (thanks grand twins) I might pass but fingers crossed for an improvement both in my health and the weather!