LONG READ Mick Cleary: 'Only a fool would write Saracens off in the long-term. They merit more respect than that.'

Blink and you might miss them, skimming over the more fancied contenders for Champions Cup glory. If anything reflected Saracens’ demise from their elevated status as European royalty it is the fact that their presence in the Round of 16 (a convoluted and unnecessary extra fixture in this competition) excites only ghoulish interest. Schadenfreude may be a fanciful way of putting it but that’s where Saracens are – others delighting in their current misery. They travel to the Rec on Saturday with only their most faithful of supporters expecting anything but a home win.

You don’t need to be Nostradamus to have come up with that forecast given that Bath humiliated Sarries at that self-same arena only a fortnight ago, winning 62-15, causing director of rugby, Mark McCall, to acknowledge that his side had been ‘punched in the face’. McCall has not had many days such as that one –  a surreal, 46-14 home loss to Clermont comes to mind but that was a freak result, quickly rectified – and he is well aware that these are challenging times for England’s most successful club in Europe.

Saturday will be a landmark moment of comparison between the two clubs. Sport has a habit of distorting things, exaggerating the good and the bad in equal measure. Bath are riding high at the moment, PREM champions and buoyed by the promise of Dyson riches for years to come. Yet it has taken a sporting lifetime for them to get here. They seemingly lack for nothing except the little matter of European approbation. They may well be European Challenge Cup holders but that means little in the historical scheme of things. Bath have to aim to get to where Saracens once were – undisputed kings of Europe with three titles in four years, all-conquering and feared as an opponent for their drive, their togetherness and their talent. Where did all that go? Bath have their sights on the promised land, and deservedly so. Saracens, meanwhile, are in no-man’s land.

It’s at this juncture in articles such as this that critics will flag up the age-old issue of Saracens and the salary cap. They cheated their way to honours. Or so they say. Look, they were found guilty of certain transgressions (some of which have been recently cast in a different light) and they paid a hefty price for it with relegation from the Premiership. Those who remain agin’ them will forever insist that their numerous titles should have an asterisk placed next to their name. Whatever. They have done their time.

You have faith that this downturn – and it is very much a relative downturn – will not last that long. Who knows? They might even give Bath a bloody nose on Saturday. That putative upset, though, would be a false positive. Saracens are in a transitional phase.

What should not ever be in dispute is the type of club they built. They found and nurtured generations of players, getting them on the books as unknowns and bringing them through to super-stardom. They did that by best practice on the coaching front and by best practice in creating the right environment for elite performance, a holistic experience, muscle and bone on the field, heart and soul off it. It was revealing that they didn’t lose a single high-end player during their 12-month demotion to the Championship. Yes, their international brigade were well remunerated (illegally so, the naysayers will claim) but there was more to it than that. Saracens was a way of life for all concerned.

And that is why you have faith that this downturn – and it is very much a relative downturn – will not last that long. Who knows? They might even give Bath a bloody nose on Saturday. That putative upset, though, would be a false positive. Saracens are in a transitional phase. Of that there is no doubt. Every team goes through such a period. Only Alex Ferguson at Manchester United managed to buck the cycle of boom to bust with his routine makeover of those trophy-winning Red Devils, ruthlessly ridding the club of players even when they still seemed to be on their game.

Football is a different business entirely and the margins in rugby are so much more difficult to manage and manipulate. The Farrell-Itoje-George era is coming to a close, so too that of McCall. It suits the Ulsterman to shy away from the limelight and you certainly wouldn’t be holding many back pages while awaiting the splash stridency of his utterances. Yet McCall ought to be acclaimed as the greatest coach/director of rugby in the history of professional club rugby. To have kept Saracens at the forefront for over a decade – remember their last league title was as recently as 2023, only a couple of years after being in the Championship – is a fine achievement.

The values that took them to such heights will remain in place even after McCall hands over the reins to the original architect of the Saracens’ story, Brendan Venter. You can only imagine that it will not take long for the renaissance to take root. Exeter Chiefs were in the doldrums for longer, Leicester and Bath before them, but Saracens have already embarked on the next phase.

The signings of lock George Martin, back-rower Alfie Barbeary and scrum-half Tomos Williams will go a long way to repairing those fault lines. There is talent coming through, too, Noah Caluori being one of several up-and-comers.

There was a record intake of 17 players to their Academy last season and their trading in the transfer market points to them being more competitive next season. Their fall from grace is very much a matter of perspective. They may be outside the reckoning for a play-off place following their spirited 21-17 loss to Northampton Saints at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, 12 points adrift with only six rounds remaining, but they have had competitive moments during what has been a military-medium season. They have enjoyed their own high points in recording good wins over Bristol Bears and Sale Sharks as well as a gritty win over one-time prime European rivals, Toulouse. But the loss to Bath spoke of fundamental problems, a surprising lack of fight and character. If nothing else, they have to show the grit and spunk on show at Tottenham for the remaining weeks.

There has been a surprising lack of heft and wallop in their play, up front and across the backline. The signings of lock George Martin, back-rower Alfie Barbeary and scrum-half Tomos Williams will go a long way to repairing those fault lines. There is talent coming through, too, Noah Caluori being one of several up-and-comers.

McCall is on his way, Farrell and his contemporaries will not be far behind. Saracens are in a state of flux. They have little to lose at the Rec on Saturday. Their reputation may need buffering but only a fool would write them off in the long-term. They merit more respect than that. Much more.