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Saracens: 'A bridge too far' - McCall's frank admission after nightmare week
Mark McCall believes the uncertainty surrounding his players’ futures disrupted their concentration as Saracens were thrashed 41-14 at Harlequins.
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The defending Premiership champions will be playing Championship rugby next season after being automatically relegated following multiple salary cap breaches.
With the future of each player up in the air as the club moves to reduce the wage bill, Saracens director of rugby McCall admits they struggled to focus at the Stoop, where they were blown apart by Quins in their first league match since relegation.
Cadan Murley crossed for two tries while Danny Care, Gabriel Ibitoye, Paul Lasike and Martin Landajo all went in for one each for the hosts.
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WATCH: Andy Goode and Brendan Venter didn’t hold back on this weeks pod as they discussed Saracens and the salary cap scandal.
“It is quite difficult to focus on a game as big as this and against a Quins side who played as well as they did. After 19 weeks, this was a bridge too far for us,” McCall said.
“I don’t think what happened today was reflective of how this team has done in the last few weeks. That team beat Leicester at Welford Road and Gloucester at Kingsholm.
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“I think this game is the worst you will see of us. We hope to be far more competitive than that for the rest of the season. It’s just that things are still fresh and raw.
“A lot of directors of rugby have said it has been a long 19 weeks. It has been longer for us, I can promise you that.
“This has been the most difficult week because when the original decision was made, there was a strong feeling in the group that we wouldn’t get relegated.
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“But the news last week that we were and all the repercussions that have come this week have made it the toughest and brought a lot of anxiety about people’s personal situations and what they will do next.”
Harlequins flew out of the blocks at the Stoop, with Care dotting down within two minutes following a rampaging run by number eight Alex Dombrandt.
Murley bagged his two tries by the half-hour mark, before Alex Lozowski replied for Saracens just prior to the break.
But Quins hit the accelerator again in the second half, with Ibitoye and Lasike touching down within 10 minutes of the re-start.
Unorthodox. https://t.co/XgYPNRcAbw
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) January 26, 2020
Dom Morris capped his Saracens debut with a try before Quins replacement Landajo walked in unopposed after intercepting a pass.
“I thought it was a really good performance,” said Quins director of rugby Paul Gustard.
“In the last two weeks in Europe, we have played pretty well and we knew we needed to get a result here. Four points was critical and five is a real bonus for us.
“We just tried to focus on the 15 v 15. There is nothing else we can control. We got the result we wanted and the rest around the match is smoke and mirrors.”
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Comments on RugbyPass
Ever 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!😭😭😭 !!!
24 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
24 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.
24 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.
24 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?
9 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.
9 Go to commentsAI is only as good as the information put in, the nuances of the sport, what you see out the corner of the eye, how you sum up in a split second the situation, yes the AI is a tool but will not help win games, more likely contribute to a loss, Rugby Players are not robots, all AI can do if offer a solution not the solution. AI will effect many sports, help train better golfers etc.
45 Go to commentsIt couldn’t have been Ryan Crotty. He wasn’t selected in either World Cup side - they chose Money Bill instead. And Money Bill only cared about himself, and that manager he had, not the team.
28 Go to comments