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Alex Lewington tames Tigers as Saracens dominate Leicester
By Online Editors
Two tries from Alex Lewington proved to be the difference as Saracens defeated Leicester 24-13 at Allianz Park. The former Tigers academy graduate crossed once in each half as the Londoners were too strong for the visitors despite a Ben White score.
The early stages passed without much incident as neither side could really get a firm foothold in the game until just before the 20-minute mark when the home side took the lead. Quick hands through the backs opened up the space for Lewington to take the ball on the burst and a perfectly angled run meant he ran through the Leicester line unscathed to touch down.
The away side thought they were back in the game almost instantly, a well-worked lineout routine ending with Jonah Holmes bursting through with a straight run to the posts only for the play to be called back for a forward pass in the build-up. They had to settle for a Tom Hardwick penalty after the hosts were penalised at the scrum.
A penalty for holding on at the ruck gave the visitors another chance to get back into the game. After Hardwick had kicked for touch, a barrelling run from Joe Batley got them within five metres. A subsequent penalty for offside by Saracens in front of the posts gave Hardwick an easy kick to cut the lead to one point heading into half-time.
The hosts had the first decent chance of the second half as they slowly made their way down to the Leicester five-metre line, but a penalty for holding on right on the try line meant the chance went begging.
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It would prove costly as the visitors took the lead soon after. Batley again made a line-breaking run and his offload inside allowed White to race the last 40 metres towards the line. Despite the last-gasp efforts of Lewington, he was able to reach out and touch the ball over the line.
A Manu Vunipola penalty cut the lead to three before Telusa Veainu saw yellow for a deliberate knock-on. Saracens moved back in front when Dom Morris dived over from short range and they almost had another straight after but a knock-on by Rotimi Segun after the ball had been spun from touchline to touchline meant that points went begging.
They held a four-point lead heading into the last ten minutes and extended their lead when once the ball made its way from one flank to the other. Lewington had a more difficult task than his previous try as he got the ball wide on the left and still had to beat Veainu, but he sidestepped him before touching down in the corner.
- Press Association
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Latest Comments
Well that sux.
Go to commentsLike I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.
Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.
So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).
You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.
I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?
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