Absolute joke no Sarries player makes Dream XV
In the match programme at Twickenham yesterday there was a big feature on the BT Sport Premiership Dream Team for the 2017-18 season. Now, of course, these things are a bit of fun but it was still surprising to see that not one Saracens player had made the cut.
Saracens did after all finish second in the regular season and then completed the job in some style yesterday when they snuffed out Exeter at source and exposed the Chiefs’ one weakness, the lack of a Plan B.
Yes, Saracens are a team that glory in the collective and possess so many stars who excel on a regular basis that it can sometimes be genuinely tricky to pick out individuals.
So let’s rectify that a little. Brad Barritt, Mako Vunipola, Maro Itoje and Owen Farrell should all have been in that Dream Team and I make it a dead heat between Willie Le Roux and Alex Goode at fullback.
And as much as I tip my hat to Dean Richards at Newcastle, all things considered – more of which anon – I would still nominate Mark McCall as the coach of the year. I’d also create some sort of special gong for Richard Wigglesworth who now has a record five Premiership titles under his belt.
Barritt is a phenomenal skipper and man of granite in the centre with the ability to dismiss injuries and pain from his mind. He was out there doing his Lazarus act again yesterday after taking a huge hit in the second half. One minute he seemed headed for A&E, the next he was back making yet another crunching tackle.
I don’t recall Barritt ever letting England down – far from it – but over the last three years or so since his precipitate departure from the Test scene he has become an even better player. No question.
Mako has played 32 competitive matches this season including England Tests and has been MOM in most of them. Yet again he was off the Richter Scale yesterday and I’m not going to bore you with statistics in attempting to describe his performance. He defies quantifying. Incredibly strong, remorseless carries, ferocious tackles, rock solid scrummaging. He was the outstanding, commanding, physical presence on the pitch.
Farrell is Farrell, whether he is at ten or 12. He’s the league’s leading points scorer, he’s ‘nails’ and his game improves with each season.
And finally Itoje who copped a little bit of flak midseason although in fairness that was mainly off the back of a couple of average displays for England when briefly he ran out of steam. How quickly we forget. Itoje, straight off the back of a Lions tour, roared into action for Saracens in the first third of the season and, perhaps stung by a little of the Press criticism, has been outstanding in the final third.
Amid all this excellence it’s easy to forget that Saracens overcame their worst run in modern history midway through the season – seven straight defeats in all games, five for what we would consider their First XV with the nadir being that humiliating 46-14 home defeat by Clermont.
Working their way through that was their biggest challenge and Wigglesworth spoke very well this week on that subject: “It was shocking. There’s no sugar-coating it when you get beat by that margin at home. We were embarrassed. It’s a players’ thing if you’re getting stuffed at home. So we took that, we made sure we owned it.
“What we did really well as a club was to not over-react. We pulled together to put it right, took a pledge to be honest with ourselves. We didn’t faction off and blame everyone else.”
That whole process will have been helped by the likes of Springbok Schalk Brits and former US Eagles captain Chris Wyles, two gnarled but always smiling warriors who bowed out yesterday.
Great players, rock solid citizens of the world and rugby characters who spiritually seem throwbacks to the old fun filled amateur days while at the same time displaying the utmost professionalism. They have both adorned the Premiership and it’s not just Sarries fans who doff a cap in their direction.
So that’s a wrap. Saracens’ are England’s champion club for the third time in four seasons. It’s been an odd season. You could put together a highlights reel to surpass anything in the Premiership’s history – sensational tries, wondrous handling and an extraordinary number of heroic last ditch try- saving tackles – but for me something has been missing.
“I’d create a special gong for Wigglesworth who has now won a record five Prem titles”
That missing component is that Saracens and Exeter – albeit the Chiefs for once misfired yesterday – are frankly streets ahead of the opposition both in terms of overall quality and consistency.
Both make light of international calls and tough European campaigns and move to the top of the pile with a remorseless certainty.
You could have wagered your mortgage on these two reaching this season’s final back in September and not missed a minute’s sleep in the interim.
That’s been the disappointment. Nobody has sprung out of the pack although Wasps have been wildly entertaining and Newcastle have given the north-east a team to cheer once more. Too many teams are treading water, or in the case of Saints and Quins going backwards at a rate of knots.
If one or two clubs don’t bridge across soon Saracens and Chiefs will be out of sight, that’s the challenge that faces directors of rugby across the land as they head off on their holidays.
