Saracens are back in Premiership final after seeing off Harlequins
Saracens completed an immediate return to the Gallagher Premiership final after showing their steel to withstand a late Harlequins onslaught in a 34-17 victory at the StoneX Stadium.
In their first season back in the top flight after being relegated for repeated salary cap breaches, they overcame the defending champions in an intense semi-final despite being reduced to 13 men at one stage during the final quarter.
Ben Earl, the Premiership’s newly-crowned player of the season, led the charge with a hat-trick of tries while Nick Tompkins and Aled Davies also crossed in a determined performance that was orchestrated brilliantly by Owen Farrell.
A bloodied Farrell finished with his head wrapped in a bandage as evidence of the ferocity of a stormy London derby that possessed the spite of previous meetings and delivered fully on expectations.
Quins endured a particularly-damaging period when hooker Jack Walker was sin-binned for a dangerous tackle in the third quarter, leaking two converted tries in a dramatic shift in balance.
The defending champions fought desperately to overcome the 27-12 deficit but, even when yellow cards to Elliot Daly and Billy Vunipola reduced Saracens to 13 men, they could not take full advantage.
Saracens lost a third player to the sin-bin when Alex Lozowksi also departed for a high tackle – the match’s four yellow cards were for the same offence – but their resilience swept them to a deserved win.
Apart from the fight shown in the closing stages, they also had to roll up their sleeves early on as Quins took a quick lead from Alex Dombrandt at the end of an imposing line-out drive.
Farrell settled home nerves with a penalty after a promising attack by Saracens, who were then forced to weather a mini siege on their line.
South Africa centre Andre Esterhuizen was influential as Quins camped themselves in the 22, but the source of their second try was the genius of fly-half Marcus Smith.
Saracens’ problems began at the scrum when a shunt backwards saw referee Luke Pearce’s arm go up, but advantage was played and Smith reacted incisively by breaking a poor tackle by Farrell, evading Davies and Alex Goode before feeding Danny Care to score.
The exhilarating pace continued when Earl scrambled over after waves of attacks as Saracens issued an impressive response to slipping further behind.
A key moment arrived just after the half-hour mark when Joe Marchant had a try disallowed for knock on before Walker was sin-binned for a high tackle on Farrell, who streamed blood as a result.
Pressure was now building on Quins’ line and once Maro Itoje had almost crossed, an overlap was ignored as Farrell slipped the ball out of a tackle for Tompkins to touch down.
More evidence for the tide turning materialised when Dombrandt dropped the kick off to the second half and Saracens pounced, working the ball to Earl to grab his second.
Walker was now back on the pitch but it made no difference as the home side ran in a fourth try, Farrell teeing up Vincent Koch for a bust through midfield with Davies present to finish.
Daly was sin-binned for a high tackle on Smith and Vunipola followed him into the stands for a dangerous challenge on Esterhuizen as tension mounted amid a concerted Quins fightback.
Saracens were down to 13 men and they were breached by Cadan Murley in the 66th minute and just as Vunipola returned, Lozowski departed for the same offence with seven minutes left.
They had the final say, however, when Earl completed his hat-trick from a line-out drive, ending Quins’ reign as champions.
Comments on RugbyPass
Wasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
3 Go to commentsAre the Brumbies playing the Blues twice in a row?
3 Go to commentsBig difference from the Saders. Forwards really muscled up and laid a solid platform. Scooter brought some steel and I liked the loosie combination. Newell has been rather disappointing this season but stepped up big time - happy also to see Franks dot down. He should do that more often! Reihana had a good game and there seems to be more flair and invention with him in the saddle. McNicoll plays well from the back and is reliable plus inventive when he joins the line. Keep it up chaps!
3 Go to comments🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
30 Go to commentsJe 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
3 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 Crusaders , you can keep going.
3 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!😭😭😭 !!!
30 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
30 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.
30 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.
30 Go to comments