Saracens' warrior spirit kept rampaging Tigers at bay in Aviva Premiership final
Ultimately, it was like trying to prise open a bank vault with a tin opener.
Party time: Saracens explode with elation at the final whistle Photo: GETTY IMAGES
By Oliver Brown 10:30AM BST 29 May 2011
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The most exhilarating denouement yet witnessed in a Premiership final was an act in 32 phases, but through it all the Saracens defence drew upon every last drop of the warrior spirit their name implies. If this was the one-dimensional rugby of which they have often been accused, then every spectator at Twickenham left crying out for more.
While the domestic showpiece might have lacked the flair and fluency of last season’s, it could scarcely be surpassed for eyeballs-out tension. Or, indeed, for symbolism: Saracens clung to recollections of their defeat at the death to Leicester here last season, channelling their resolve to usurp the premier power in the English game.
Leicester railed relentlessly against the erosion of their authority, gleaned from back-to-back titles and seven straight appearances in the final, but not even their most fervent disciples could dispute this result.
Saracens were simply more disciplined, more determined, more single-minded.
When young Owen Farrell finally belted the ball into touch to end the Tigers’ rampage, Saracens supporters hurled programmes down from the top tier of the East Stand as the players erupted into joy unconfined.
Amid such riotous scenes, the tricky task of singling out the outstanding performer began. Schalk Brits won the accolade by common consent, both for the pass that set up James Short for the game’s only try and for hauling down Alesana Tuilagi when the fearsome Samoan looked primed for a decisive riposte. You would not normally expect such interventions from the Saracens hooker, but this was an occasion when every one of the men in black stepped well outside their remit.
None more so than Farrell, the 19 year-old with ice in his veins. The fly-half went toe-to-toe with Toby Flood, England perennial, and somehow emerged superior as five exquisitely-taken penalties helped push his bedraggled team-mates over the line. It stretched credulity to think that last year, he had still been at school, sharing the agonies of Saracens losing as a punter.
The teenager is helped, naturally, by having no less than league luminary Andy Farrell as his father and mentor. Extravagant praise is the style of Farrell Snr, who explained: “I’m proud as a father, but even prouder as a coach. It would have been an absolute travesty if we hadn’t won.”
Farrell had looked ill-equipped last November to secure his place at No 10, after the long-term injury to Derek Hougaard. He missed his share of kicks in the semi-final against Gloucester but, centre stage on the most intimidating platform of all, he prospered. Next season he could find himself marginalised by the arrival of Charlie Hodgson, but this was a time to embrace the future.
Saracens’ performance was stirring in its defiance. True, they did little to deflect arguments that their technique is essentially conservative, or that their season-ending streak of 12 victories owes more to resilience than flamboyance. Led by Brendan Venter — he of the bizarrely truncated television interview last December — the squad uphold a philosophy of the less embellishment, the better.
Venter, a saturnine South African, was once asked to envisage the perfect rugby team and he replied that he pictured Leicester. How remarkable, then, that the triumph he engineered on Saturday was based on emulating a group he ended up vanquishing. Noting the Tigers’ famed attention to detail and often brutal training sessions, he ensured Saracens became equally forensic in their approach: players at Vicarage Road would be attached to microchips, their every movement timed and tested.
But the victory was borne not merely of the appliance of science. Saracens, thanks to Farrell and to Richard Wigglesworth, the scrum-half who came on after the interval, have started to establish a conveyor belt of talent to stand parallel with Leicester’s. David Strettle, the 27 year-old wing whom Chris Ashton believes is the quickest in the country, gives further hope that a dynasty may grow in Watford.
Do not underestimate, either, the strength of camaraderie that runs through the winners. Jacques Burger, the Namibian flanker whose face ran with blood at the final whistle, epitomised the effort.
Hardly a surprise that he should be Saracens’ player of the season. But it is as a collective that they are most impressive. Every time somebody needed to track back for the tackle against Leicester, the black shirts arrived in numbers, like a pack of starving wolves.
Defending en masse does not happen by accident. In Saracens’ case, it has been an impulse fostered in large part by team-bonding trips to Florida, where they took tips from the Miami Dolphins, and to Munich’s Oktoberfest.
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