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Mark McCall's Saracens admission is unlikely to go down well with EPCR
Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall is prepared to sacrifice their chances of more European glory as he admitted this season’s priority was now avoiding relegation.
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The under-fire Gallagher Premiership champions overcame the most troubling of weeks to beat Gloucester 21-12 at Kingsholm.
The visitors, who are appealing against a 35-point deduction and a fine of more than £5million for breaching salary cap rules, ground out a deserved victory thanks to tries from Nick Tompkins and Ben Earl, with Manu Vunipola adding three penalties and a conversion.
Saracens failed to turn up for the 2019-20 season launch of the Heineken Champions Cup and Challenge Cup in Cardiff on Wednesday, the day after the punishments were imposed, but McCall did face the media on Saturday and revealed he was likely to field a youthful-looking team in the defence of their European crown.
“Despite the appeal, we have to plan for the worst-case scenario so to avoid relegation is now the priority ahead of European rugby,” he said.
“We are not planning on breaking up our squad and most of the England players were in on Tuesday as they love the club, but the conversations with them may be a bit different now as some of our younger players deserve a chance in Europe.
This is super exciting… https://t.co/eRHL9W4lIM
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 9, 2019
“I haven’t read too much in the papers and we can’t control what people are saying, but today I think it’s one of our best wins as I can’t believe how switched on the players were.”
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McCall felt his side “took toughness to a whole new level” as he described the Kingsholm crowd as “quite quiet”.
There was still plenty of anger directed towards the visitors from the stands, though, with the Saracens team greeted by a chorus of boos as they took to the field and a group of home fans in The Shed waving fake money.
Fairplay to @notoriousPCO #wasps https://t.co/dBouYOroIU
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 9, 2019
But Saracens coach Alex Sanderson felt his side were galvanised by the reception.
“We accept the hate we are going to get, but we think it is misplaced and misguided,” he said.
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“We used the anger directed at us to fuel our motivation and, whilst it won’t last for too long, we’ll use the negative energy to inspire us as, at present, emotions are running very high.”
'I just sat in front of all the players and said ‘what do you think of all this salary cap stuff?’ https://t.co/pKeeo1IvP9
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 9, 2019
Tom Marshall and Lewis Ludlow scored Gloucester’s tries, with Billy Twelvetrees kicking a conversion, but Gloucester head coach Johan Ackermann accepted his side were second best.
“They have a DNA that works for them and they were better than us despite having to play under considerable pressure,” he said.
“We started well but didn’t get the points and after that we lost the scrum and line-out battle and couldn’t get our game going.
“Defensively they were tremendous and tactically they out-kicked us, so we have to take the defeat on the chin as you need to be at your best in this competition and we weren’t.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Je suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
25 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
25 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
25 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
25 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to commentsYes Sir! Surprising, just like Fraser would also have escaped sanction if he was a few inches lower, even if it was by accident that he missed! Has there really been talk about those sanctions or is this just sensational journalism? I stopped reading, so might have missed any notations.
11 Go to comments