Hollywoodbets Sharks v Saracens Champions Cup Preview
Silverware for Sharks
By saracensfan62
December 9 2025
Round 2 of the Investec Champions Cup is already upon us, and we travel to the other hemisphere to face the South African Sharks. Having last played them in a pre-season friendly/warm up match at the Kings Park Stadium (aka Shark Tank!) where we won 38-26 in what was a game of two halves. Now we face the Sharks again but with significantly more at stake. Following on from our demolition of Clermont at StoneX and a hammering for the Sharks against Toulouse at the Stade Ernest Wallon, another win would allow us to stake our claim in the top 2 of the group (alongside Toulouse). Interestingly, we are currently tied top of our group pool table with Toulouse, having both got the BP win in round 1 and with exactly the same points difference! In their respective domestic leagues, Sharks and Saracens have had mixed fortunes this season, sitting 14th in the URC (only Dragons and Scarlets are doing worse right now) and just 1 victory so far this season.
Slightly shorter preview this week folks, just because as we haven't played Sharks in competition before (or at least I can't remember us ever have!), there isn't as much to write on as per usual.
The question of team sheets and selection has to be raised, do we go as full strength as we can or hold back this weekend? It’s difficult to win when we play a South African team in SA anyway let alone when it’s shortly after internationals.
I struggle to remember a time when we have ever played the Sharks apart from the 2014 friendly at Allianz Park where we beat their touring side 23-15 thanks to a Charlie Hodgson masterclass (it feels like a different era) and this years game in SA. With the weather being at the height of summer right now, we can expect humid and hot conditions – a balmy 25 degrees Celsius with 15mph southerly wind is predicted. With the pitch in Durban being a quicker, firmer surface than we may have become accustomed to recently, that will assist the Sharks in their power/carry game and tactical kicking.
Set-Piece Matchups
Saracens set piece was excellent in the Clermont match, with scrum success of 92% and 94% lineout success. Testament to James Hadfield for his darts. As for the Sharks, their numbers are still pretty decent. High 80s for their scrum and lineout success, but an occasionally inconsistent lineout has sometimes been problematic for them. Much like Sarries, Sharks will rely on their physical forwards, strong crash ball and maul options, powerful close-quarter play and pace on the turnover ball with backs like Jaden Hendrikse and Makazole Mapimpi.
In terms of line speed and defence, I think the Sharks are more likely to win or force turnovers. Traditionally the South African teams (or at least, when I’ve watched games with SA opponents) will target the breakdown and force errors such as holding on or going off feet. Whichever team concedes fewer penalties in contact and around the breakdown will have a huge advantage.
Tactical Matchups
Set Piece Accuracy – Jason Jenkins and Marvin Orie against the likes of Maro Itoje and Nick Isiekwe will be superb to watch and it’ll be fascinating to watch and see how much/little Saracens decide to target their lineouts.
Saracens tactical kicking against the SA Sharks counter-ruck and kick chase will be a good battle. Any wind will likely swirl around the stadium somewhat, making high balls harder to retake. This could ultimately favour the Sharks backs as they have the experience in their own stadium.
Saracens’ excellent European form (big win over Clermont, excellent set-piece numbers in round 1) gives them the tools to control territory and convert chances. The element of the jetlag, Travel and Durban conditions favour the Sharks and give them a strong chance; the set-piece and breakdown intensity will keep it close. If Saracens can control the scrum and limit Sharks’ lineout steals they’re likelier to edge it.
I am not going to try and make another (very wrong!) prediction at a team, frankly I do not know enough about who is going to be rested after the internationals and the mandatory standdown periods. Feel free to make your own predictions in the comments though. What I will say is best wishes to all those who are making the journey to watch and cheer on, and good luck Sarries!
Any idea what sort of squad has travelled?
The social media posts point to Farrell being there as a ‘head to head’ with Esterhuizen
JMG also on a picture advertising the game
Thanks as always. Don’t blame you for not predicting a teams, not a clue how we’ll line up. It’s a slight conundrum though. Obviously Chiefs at home has to take preference but this is probably the best chance we have at a win from our remaining fixtures which is bonkers things to say when you look at their squad. Their front row of Ox, Bongi and Vinnie is scary on its own! The Sharks have got a new interim (I think) head coach so maybe they’ll get a bit of a bounce from that too.
Would great to see a few people rotated in though, particularly at centre. Might be a baptism of fire v Andre the Giant.
It would be useful if we could see their team before having to pick ours! Would imagine everyone not receiving treatment will travel as a bit of warm weather .
I’m currently in Cape Town before flying up to Durban Friday
Not sure who we'll pick but Baxter pretty candid that he's sending the scrubs to France to face Racing whilst he rotates/protects the bigger names for the fixture with Saracens.
Understandably really. Sides do it for the Champions cup, they’ll give even less of a @#$%& about the Challenge. Exeter v Racing was the Euro final not so long ago, funny how things go:
1 Eroni Mawi
2 Theo Dan
3 Marco Riccioni
4 Nick Isiekwe
5 Harry Wilson
6 Theo McFarland
7 Andy Onyeama-Christie (c)
8 Tom Willis
9 Charlie Bracken
10 Fergus Burke
11 Angus Hall
12 Olly Hartley
13 Sam Spink
14 Rotimi Segun
15 Elliot Daly
Replacements
16 James Hadfield
17 Alex O Driscoll
18 Marcus Street
19 Hugh Tizard
20 Nathan Michelow
21 Ben Earl
22 Gareth Simpson
23 Alex Lozowski
First things first, congrats to Lozo for being back playing. Hope to see lots more of him as he is essential to our success.
I sound like a broken record, but playing a 6/2 split with Roti starting is just pure stupidity. He is, whilst a superb player, notorious for getting injured. If he goes off, who do wwe put on the wing??? Charlie Bracken? Olly Hartley? Eroni mawi?? Simpson is not good enough to be near a matchday 23 and has had some really poor games this season, hopefully we can get Tomos Williams signed for next season
Hartley and Spink will have their work cut out for them against Esterhuizen and Hooker but potentially the best centre partnership for Burke to flourish. Bug day for Alex O’Driscoll too.
Going to be a tough match but hopefully we can get something out of it.
saracensfan62 First things first, congrats to Lozo for being back playing. Hope to see lots more of him as he is essential to our success.
I sound like a broken record, but playing a 6/2 split with Roti starting is just pure stupidity. He is, whilst a superb player, notorious for getting injured. If he goes off, who do wwe put on the wing??? Charlie Bracken? Olly Hartley? Eroni mawi?? Simpson is not good enough to be near a matchday 23 and has had some really poor games this season, hopefully we can get Tomos Williams signed for next season
Mawi did have a lovely dart down the wing the other day…I’m sure I’ve seen Hartley fill on the wing v Quins once. If not, Burke to 15, Daly to the wing and Loz to 10.
saracensfan62
I sound like a broken record, but playing a 6/2 split with Roti starting is just pure stupidity. He is, whilst a superb player, notorious for getting injured. If he goes off, who do wwe put on the wing??? Charlie Bracken? Olly Hartley? Eroni mawi??
Yep. It is crazy.
It has never worked.
Every time there’s some disaster. Eg Quins at Spurs where AOC had to play in the centres… we lost; or Northampton away where Charlie had to play on the wing… we lost (although the bigger crime was continuing our mad box kicking tactic … to Charlie Bracken!)
Learning from our mistakes is not something we seem to be very good at at the moment.
Hope Spink goes well tomorrow. I still think he’s the kind of player we are missing in our first team. Although now Lozowski is back i expect this is the last we’ll see of Spink this season even if he remains fit.
Given Spinks and Rotis fitness record, having a bloke who’s been out for 10 months as cover seems chancy to say the least. Cinti was hobbling at the end of last week may explain why hes not in the squad, but would have thought Max Malins would have provided good cover.
I really like that team. A bit hard to know which elements have been rotated as opposed to having picked up knocks but if we're resting the likes of Maro, JMG, Carre, Van-Zyl, Malins etc for Chiefs I am all in favour of that.
Obviously a rotation side and yet it still looks strong and using it as an opportunity to play the ex-Wasps centres together in a much tougher game than a PRC one is great. Not seeing them as the best centre partnership for Burke to flourish. I'd have said that was Tompkins and Cinti.
That looks a very strong Sharks team and given the challenge of training, limited practice once in SA, etc I'll be very happy with a good coherent performance and delighted with any points.
As others have said great to have Lozo back and Segun back in the XV although I share the concerns about us picking a 6/2.
Over half the backs are potentially the nucleus of our rebuild for the coming X seasons and whilst it's early days it would be great to see them given then chance to show what they can do.
Hartley/Spink is very direct with limited play-making so Daly will hopefully be brought in to compliment Burke in that regard.
I'd echo the points here and elsewhere about Wilson. I was also very sceptical about a 6'2'' lock but he's making a very strong case that he should start there over either Tizard or Isiekwe to partner Maro. This will probably be the toughest game he's played for us to date so I'm very interested to see how he goes.
Dan and the lineout need to start clicking soon. Otherwise very positive.
As mentioned above I think this is the better centre pairing for Burke to flourish. Burke isn’t the best distributor so it give him two big options to truck it up in midfield without have to do anything too fancy. Hopefully they’ll provide some gainline and quick ball. Daly is there to provide some playmaking outside him. Whether Spink and Hartley will get any spare change out of Esterhuizen and Hooker is another matter.
I am a bit surprised we are risking Tom Willis before the Exeter game , but otherwise pretty happy with the team . It will a steep learning curve for some , so good luck to the younger lads !
Solid first half but concerns over the scrum in the second half. If riccioni is injured then we shouldn’t be risking him for one game. Wilson looking good again and 10,12,13 look solid in dealing with Estherheuzen. Big second half and hope we can keep in the game when the sharks bring some of their guys off the bench
Entertaining first half but brain dead play by AOC to give them a penalty at the death, which thanks to the ref then became 7 points - definite forward pass !
Hell of an effort by the lads there. Terrible conditions and a rotated team, says a lot that we could’ve won that. Frustrating that two moments of avoidable ill discipline costed us two tries.
Committed, full of effort and never out of it.
But lacking in quality and ideas after phase 2.
And in the critical moment where we needed to get it right, we couldn’t execute.
I agree that Hartley had a decent game both going forward and also in tackling Andre Esterhuizen. I was also impressed by Angus Hall’s work in the air as he showed great determination. Up front Mawi put a big shift in and we were competitive in the scrum and maul. I thought our line out let us down a bit.
Only concern for next week would be whether Riccioni was injured as we are not excessively long of top class props.
maynas With Sharks down to 14 and lineout not doing well take the tap, guaranteed chance not a gamble. Where was someone to make a sensible decision
In fairness it was so wet, the ball was getting dislodged in the tackle a lot. We also had been getting very little go forward ball in hand. The lineout at least gave us a chance of creating something.
A scrum could have been an option, tie the defenders in. I think line out was the worst option, especially as we had just used a trick play the line out before
Static Impressive performance whatever happens now. I was not expecting such a strong performance
Agreed. Lots to work on but generally positive given the challenges of rotation, the nature of an away SA fixture and weather.
I'd echo the comments above at some concern about Riccioni playing on.
Huge shift from Mawi. 70 minutes against SA opposition and some decent work in the loose. Hall and Hartley showed very well too. Subbing Wilson was an odd call unless he had an injury or it was with a view to the Chiefs game.
Willis immense as always, I really hope that when he leaves it is with sufficiently fond memories of Saracens that if he ever returns we'll be his first port of call.
The reality is we were a brain-dead decision and a bit of execution away from what would have been a great away win.
That feels like something to build on. I'd have been happy with 1 point before the game. That we could have had 5 with better execution at the end is a positive.
I was there and conditions awful. After their first easy score was expecting the worst. But we we fought back really well only to give it away in the last few minutes of H1.
Poor kicking at the start of H2 and the Dan yellow looked like we were going home empty handed but a great rally against the odds gave us a chance for victory.
Clermont getting no points should hopefully mean Challenge cup progress at least.
Don’t think so, they have two wins already and play Clermont away next who appear to have given up. We’ll have Toulouse who now will be all guns blazing to try and top the pool. It’s the Sharks teams who are our threat.
Glasgow may be Champions Cup knockout for us, but not them.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025:12:14:05:57:12 by The Bard.
The main takeaway for me this morning is we are going to miss Willis massively.
He's unique and a replacement would be expensive but I'm not convinced it's something we can afford to be without especially if Wilson is only going to play from the bench and Dan's continual issues at set piece mean his starting is also not a given. That's two main carriers not starting.
As someone mentioned earlier in the week it feels a lot like we've re-signed Onyeama-Christie. Him giving a comment on what it is going to be like having Martin playing next year and yesterdays captaincy feel like confirmations. If so that feels like a mistake.
With the depth in the backrow and players coming through, Knight, Michelow, etc you could make a compelling case for using keeping just one of Onyeama-Christie and Wilson (whose contract is also up this year I think) and backing the Academy and current options.
It will be interesting to see how recruitment shakes out but right now I'd say tying down Wilson to a decent length contract is a priority. Also has his time has come to start in our main XV over other non-Maro options at lock.
Great to see that Toulouse can be beaten away from home given enough commitment and not a little skill. Well done Glasgow even if it does make our next 2 Champions Cup games in January even harder.
Hopefully Maro is back for our crucial game against Exeter this Saturday.
Unfortunately it also means Toulouse will be coming at us fully loaded and with a point to prove 😂 Hopefully we can put on one our our greatest European performances because we’ll need it!
nedrichards Yeah, for those not looking closely at the timestamps I think MarkCol posted that at... slightly before half time in the game yesterday!
Weird game. Toulouse scored all the points in the first half and Glasgow in the second.
I know some find it defeatist but whilst I'd like to see us go fully loaded for the home game v Toulouse I am entirely comfortable with us getting streamed into the Challenge Cup group at the end of the pool stages.
That level of opposition would give us a good challenge whilst winning the competition would not be unrealistic.
The last two games suggest a focus on the Prem which is the right approach at this stage of our "rebuild"
We were a bit unlucky but showed loads of grit. watching the Bath game how are they loaded with this much quality. Did they backload the player contracts?
Agree. A good watch. I stopped watching at 60 when it was all very close and felt like it could have gone either way.
Amuskekeli is such a good referee and helped make it a good game.
They missed Spencer badly. I thought his stand in was really good by normal standards but Spencer has become the heartbeat of that team and Russell doesn't play as well with him around.
Absence of leadership was also evident which shows how far he's come at Bath as that was something he lacked with us.
Quote:
wolfgangvonb77 ... watching the Bath game how are they loaded with this much quality. Did they backload the player contracts?
#
They did but they have long since had to pay the piper for that. Even Pepper is no longer on the Academy contract they signed him on from Falcons so they will be making that up this season.
Not lost any significantly expensive players in that time and I think it's unlikely any of their joiners this season did so on backloaded contracts.
Just goes to show how hard it is to win at Stade Mayol and how good that win we got in 2016 was! There was a reason Jamie talked it up recently as his favourite European win (other than finals, obvs) - full game is at [www.youtube.com] if any more recent fans have never seen it!
I ended up watching Saints v Bulls in the hotel in SA, annoyingly not showing Toulon game. Bulls really were awful, as were a lot of other teams this weekend. The tournament organisers really ought to start worrying about this.
Offering more points for away wins might be an answer to keep teams honest.
I agree the majority of matches were not great viewing as one of the teams was deliberately under powered. Bath, and Sarries were two of the exceptions where both teams were genuinely trying to win!
The Bard Bulls really were awful, as were a lot of other teams this weekend. The tournament organisers really ought to start worrying about this.
Offering more points for away wins might be an answer to keep teams honest.
I agree The Bard.
I remember when both SuperRugby and the European Cup games were must watches with the vast majority of games being at least interesting and competitive.
To be fair at the times French teams rarely bothered away in the pool stages just like today and the Pro-Many automatic qualifications meant some group would have a guaranteed full house for playing the Italian teams in the Champions and Challenge. It was still infinitely better than now.
The obvious issues for me are too little quality, too many teams rotating and the loss of the H/A format in the pools that helped balance things out. Also the combination of the two competitions that means you don't have a Tier1 and Tier 2 as much as a competition for the better teams and then one for the worst of the better teams to walk. See Bath last season.
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