18 June 5, 2022The Sunday TimesRugby Union
HOW GOOD ARE
SARACENS 2.0?
They are favourites to lift the title, but their strength
in depth going into next season is not what it was
Saracens of the recent past had the
extraordinary Schalk Brits to deputise
for Jamie George when he was on
England duty. That is now another
position where Saracens need to find
back-up strength.
They do have some outstanding
players remaining. Alex Lozowski, a
shoo-in for most Premiership sides,
can move to fly half when Owen
Farrell is away, and really should be in
Eddie Jones’s plans himself. Duncan
Taylor, if only he could stay fit, is true
class in midfield.
And the form of the established‘Their academy still
hammers out
excellent players
and their scouting
network produced
Theo McFarland,
the find of the year’S
aracens are in the Gallagher
Premiership semi-finals in
their first season back in the
division. Some burning
questions now arise. Are
they good enough to beat
champions Harlequins on
Saturday at StoneX Stadium
and, if so, will they win the trophy for
the fifth time in eight seasons by beat-
ing either Leicester Tigers or North-
ampton Saints in the final at Twicken-
ham on June 18?
And can they then regain their
former trophy-gilded eminence and
compete at the top end of both the
Gallagher Premiership and the Euro-
pean Champions Cup, an event they
looked capable of dominating a few
years ago?
We can immediately identify two
obstacles in their path. In the World
Cup year of 2023, with the endless
absences of those on England duty,
they will be hampered more than any
other club. Secondly, the drastic
reduction in the salary cap for nextSTEPHEN
JONESRugby Correspondentwho was awesome for La Rochelle last
week in the European Cup final, and
two outstanding scrum halves in Ben
Spencer, now at Bath, and Richard
Wigglesworth, now player-coach at
Leicester.
Skelton was monstrous alongside
Maro Itoje in the Saracens run of
trophies, fittingly since the club had
galvanised a faded career. His replace-
ment? Hugh Tizard, the Harlequins
lock, joins next season and Callum
Hunter-Hall is a young thruster, yet
both will have to advance dramati-
cally to fill Skelton’s capacious jersey.
At scrum half, while Aled Davies
from Wales and Ivan van Zyl from
South Africa have had their moments,
they have, understandably, not lived
up to the excellence of the departed
pair. Furthermore, by next season
both the powerhouse tight-heads who
powered Saracens to the summit of
Europe will have moved on. Juan
Figallo has retired to coach Saracens
Ladies, the champions, Vincent Koch
joins Wasps this close-season.
Who’s left? Marco Riccioni, the
young Italian tight-head, was impress-
ive until he suffered an injury — and
the club has highly-promising front
rowers in Ralph Adams-Hale and Alec
Clarey. But as yet Saracens — nor any
other club — can remotely match that
power combination. At hooker, theseason, from £6.4 million to £5 mil-
lion, will be a blow to Saracens and to
any English club hoping to compete in
the latter stages in Europe.
Yet the club’s reaction to adversity
tends to be definitive. When Saracens
stood accused of infringing the salary
cap in 2019, the punishment levied on
them — a fine, a colossal points deduc-
tion and certain relegation — was ludi-
crously over the top.
The way they coped with their
demotion was a masterclass. The evi-
dence has always been that the
Saracens squad still have the passion,
the loyalty and the anger. The club has
a new board and new investors. Mark
McCall remains the outstanding
coaching strategist in British rugby.
Their academy system continues to
hammer out excellent players; their
scouting network enabled them to
find Theo McFarland, a Samoan
basketball player who intended to
play in America and who has become
the find of the Premiership season.
But if you compare next season’s
team with the regal sides of the recent
past, there could be shortcomings,
purely because of circumstance and
reduced purchasing power. They may
not be the same world-class team.
Some examples. During their rele-
gation they did lose three brilliant
players in Will Skelton, the Australian