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Two-try Christie an inspiration as Saracens secure stylish win

By PA
Saracens' Andy Onyeama-Christie celebrates after scoring his team's fourth try at Kingsholm (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Saracens kicked off their Gallagher Premiership season in impressive style with a bonus-point victory over Gloucester at Kingsholm.

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Without departed skipper Owen Farrell, new recruit Fergus Burke slipped seamlessly into his shoes to guide the visitors to a morale-boosting 35-26 success.

Andy Onyeama-Christie scored two of their tries and Ivan van Zyl and Tobias Elliott the others, with Burke kicking two conversions and two penalties.

Freddie Thomas, Freddie Clarke, Jack Clement and Seb Blake scored tries for Gloucester, with George Barton adding three conversions.

Val Rapava-Ruskin was a late withdrawal for Gloucester having aggravated a knee injury, with Mayco Vivas stepping up from the bench.

Ruck Speed

0-3 secs
55%
40%
3-6 secs
26%
39%
6+ secs
15%
18%
106
Rucks Won
103

The first 15 minutes were largely featureless with neither side able to threaten the try line as referee Craig Maxwell-Keys awarded seven penalties to prevent any flow to the game.

Gloucester full-back Barton enlivened proceedings with a couple of penetrative runs but losing lineouts on their own throw did not help the home side’s cause.

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The game sprang into life when Saracens moved the ball along the line for Elliot Daly to chip ahead and the ball bounced favourably for Rotimi Segun to collect and score.

Worse was to follow for Gloucester when first van Zyl intercepted a telegraphed pass from debutant Gareth Anscombe to race 45 metres, before Burke and Daly created space for Elliott to leave Anscombe and Ollie Thorley floundering.

Gloucester badly needed a score before the interval and got one when Tomos Williams quickly took a short penalty to dash into the opposition 22. The scrum-half was hauled down just short of the line but the hosts maintained the pressure for Thomas to crash over.

Barton’s impressive touchline conversion left his side 17-7 adrift at half-time. However, Gloucester made a disastrous start to the second half.

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Ruan Ackermann lost the restart kick for Saracens to build up pressure and Onyeama-Christie finished off an unstoppable forward drive.

The home side changed their whole front row in an attempt to reverse their fortunes but Saracens responded by bringing on three international forwards in Jamie George, Ben Earl and Nick Isiekwe and it paid dividends with a penalty from Burke extending their lead.

The hosts kept in contention with replacement Clarke scoring with his first touch, but their hopes were short-lived when another pre-planned lineout move put Onyeama-Christie in the clear and the flanker raced away to score his second.

Burke missed the conversion but added a simple penalty before Anscombe was replaced by Charlie Atkinson.

Gloucester showed considerable spirit to score tries from Clement and Blake to earn a deserved bonus point but their rally came too late.

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M
MO 1 hour ago
Will Jordan opens up on how All Blacks have changed under Scott Robertson

Razor does have a conundrum - Will Jordan scores tries! The majority of his AB career has been wing, but his favoured position is Full Back. Is Will Jordan an exceptional fullback? The answer is probably NO. He's not especially good under the high ball. He's not especially good kicking out of defense. And he's not an especially good tackler or last defender. But he does score tries!


However, I believe Razor is being myopic in his team selections and game plan. This year was the year to try different things. Everyone would accept losses this year if he was really trying different combos


But in reality he's not... I think Ioane is an amazing winger. He's a good defender at center but he creates nothing at center because for 3 years now his passing and distrubution skills have remained poor. But Razor persists and doesn't give Proctor a chance. The problem is compounded for our centers because Jordie is not a good distributor either - so in the end the ball rarely gets to the wing unless DMAC does a cross field kick. Jordie and/or Reiko bashing the ball up is just so damn predictable.


Scooter is a good player, but after 9 games his leadership must be under question. Furthermore in the 7 games he has captained, I believe the leadership burden has affected his game.


Is Scooter a world class 4 - absolutley not. But unlike Rassie who converted PSDT to the blindside role - Razor has not contemplated doing the same with Scooter.

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