The Premiership champions are carrying on the tradition of Leicester and Wasps in their days of European domination, with a strong team spirit and mental fortitudeThe last team to beat Saracens in the European Champions Cup, Clermont Auvergne, will meet them in the final next month. After the French club’s victory over Leinster in the semi‑final in Lyon on Sunday a local journalist became rather more lyrical than the Premiership and European champions are known to be. “Saracens, their surgical rugby, shadows and blood, charcoal and demons, await at the corner of Murrayfield where many ghosts prowl,” he wrote. “But is it not the best place for an exorcism?”The final certainly promises to be exercising for Clermont, whose England wing...
Eddie Jones’s glorious England revolution has come too late for this tour. Like Ireland and Wales, the Lions will seek territory and set-piece masteryJohn Kingston was in a state of shock when he was invited to stand in front of a camera last Friday night minutes after Harlequins had lost to Exeter at The Stoop. The club’s director of rugby wore the air of a man who, in the words of PG Wodehouse, had searched for the leak in life’s gas-pipe with a lighted candle.The match had been the most effervescent in the Premiership this season, fizzing with movement, daring, skill and the outrageous. Quins were at their most swashbuckling, one movement containing offloads from their props Joe Marler and...
Warren Gatland has selected an abrasive and battle-hardened Lions squad for the formidable challenge of taking on the All Blacks in their own backyardThere can be a slight sense of anticlimax in the immediate aftermath of a British & Ireland Lions squad announcement. Not every deserving individual gets picked, not every country feels fairly represented and the brutal realities of the schedule, particularly this summer, are not easily ignored. It generally takes a while for everyone to calm down and appreciate precisely what the selectors are seeking to achieve.In the case of the 2017 Lions, ultimately, it is less the shortage of Scots that leaps out than the bristling bundle of competitive energy heading New Zealand’s way. This is not...
Whatever squad is unveiled on Wednesday, there should be enough ballast in the Lions party to compete in rugby’s most formidable environment in New ZealandSoon enough the longest wait in rugby will be over. Warren Gatland can still expect loads of advice between now and the first Test against the All Blacks on 24 June but after this week’s selection excitement the tone will swiftly change. Picking a British and Irish Lions squad to tour New Zealand is a lot easier than coming back victorious.It certainly pays to hear from those who have made the same trek in the past and experienced, rugby-wise, a parallel universe. “Their rugby was different from anything I had experienced before; at times it was...
Alex Lozowski stakes further England claim, Ben Te’o gives reminder to Lions and Eddie Jones is busy casting his eye over options for tour of Argentina Related: Alex Lozowski sparks Saracens revival to defeat dominant Northampton • Match report: Northampton 25-27 Saracens• Match report: Bristol 21-36 Wasps• Match report: Worcester 25-19 Bath Related: Bristol go down fighting after spirited battle against Wasps • Two-tone approach may throw Warburton and Hartley a Lions lifeline• Match report: Harlequins 26-39 Exeter Continue reading...