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'The culture at Saracens is second to none, that's evident for everyone to see'

By Online Editors
Maro Itoje (Getty Images)

Despite many casting Saracens as the villains of the Premiership, England second row Maro Itoje claims the club’s culture is ‘second to none’. Their dramatic fall from grace had rivals branding the North London side cheats, but the British and Irish Lion, who committed his future to Saracens this week, is confident that the club’s future is “brighter” than its past.

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At the start of the year, Saracens were automatically relegated to the RFU Championship, following on from a £5 million plus fine and a 35 point reduction after it was found they had breached the Premiership salary cap. Yet Itoje maintains that it is culture that sets the team apart.

He told the club website: “The culture at Saracens is second to none and I think that’s evident for everyone to see. The excitement of this group is massive.

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“I’m really looking forward to the future; the future is going to be brighter than our past. I think we have the foundations in place to make that happen.

“We have the players, we have talent, we have the coaches, we have the support from the backroom staff so the future is in our hands and we have the power to shape our own destiny.”

The club are looking to bounce back into the Gallagher Premiership after a year in the RFU Championship, and will attempt the feat with the vast majority of their first-team squad.

Itoje said: “One thing I know about Saracens is the calibre of players, if you look around our dressing room, we have players who are hungry to achieve.

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“We’ve been successful but we’re not resting on our laurels. We want to push on, we want to achieve amazing things and to do that we have to put in the work day by day. The process has started already and day by day we’re going to work to get better and improve.”

“It’s always been the case at Saracens that they’ve focused on youth and had a strong Academy system.” said the 25-year-old. “If you look at the first team now there’s a number of guys who have graduated through the Academy. This Championship year is the perfect year for them and I can’t wait to help them along their way.

“We’re really excited to firstly off this season well and in Europe as well before going on to the Championship, rebuild, focus on the fundamentals and come back and hopefully be stronger than ever.”

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J
Jon 9 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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