Owen Farrell is worried about the tackle zone in rugby
Owen Farrell insists players are forced to tread a “very fine line” when tackling after Saracens secured their place in Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership final despite incurring three yellow cards.
Saracens stand one win away from completing their quest for redemption from their salary cap scandal after toppling champions Harlequins 34-17 to set up a Twickenham showdown against Leicester.
A display of trademark resilience saw Mark McCall’s men battle back from 12-3 down to score 24 unanswered points, in the process emerging largely unscathed from a lengthy Quins siege in the final quarter.
Victory was delivered against the odds as dangerous challenges by Elliot Daly, Billy Vunipola and Alex Lozowski meant they played five minutes of the second half with only 13 men and 25 minutes with at least one player in the sin bin. Harlequins also saw Jack Walker receive a yellow card for the same offence.
The sport has a zero tolerance policy to high tackles due to the risks involved, but Farrell insists players are making instant decisions that can have significant consequences if wrong.
“A few of the tackles were just trying to be dominant. There was no malice in it and the referee has seen it as a yellow card and that’s it, we get on with it,” the Saracens captain said.
“There are times you can slow down loads of contact on TV and find something. When there’s a bigger collision people look at it more.
“It’s a very fine line and I don’t think people quite understand when it gets slowed down on TV how quick those decisions are.
“We know what we can and can’t do, but you still have to have enough intent to go forward in your defence. If you are constantly being passive you probably won’t get picked next week.
“I’m glad everyone is doing what they can to make the game go in the right direction in terms of safety and we will do what we can to control that.
“Hopefully it goes in the right direction – the game is safe but there’s some common sense to it too.”
Saracens’ Ben Earl scored a hat-trick of tries against Harlequins (Mark Pain/PA)
Saracens have reached the Premiership final for the first time since 2019, after which they were relegated for repeatedly breaking the salary cap.
Director Mark McCall said that the loyalty shown by players and staff that kept the club together amid the scandal was evident on the pitch against Harlequins and Farrell insists he never had any doubt that the squad would remain largely intact.
“Probably the best thing I can say is that we as players probably just always thought that would happen,” he said.
“I don’t think anybody thought for two seconds that we’d all end up all over the place.
“The biggest shock was a few younger lads going on loan as they tried to break into the international team, which was good for them and good for the club. We never expected anyone to want to go anywhere else.
“This group is tight. It’s been together a long, long time. It’s been a bit different over the last few years because of a bit of change, but there’s a core group that’s been together a long, long time.”
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Skelton may be brought back for the Wallabies so that would be the only reason that may hinder Wilson. Easily the form, most skilful and game IQ of any Oz 8. Valentini’s best and favourite position is 6, but lineouts may be an issue with Skelton, Valentini and Wilson. Will be interesting what Schmidt goes for but for me Wilson should be picked on form. Schmidt rewards work rate, skill and consistency. All that glitters every so often won’t be in contention. Greely is one of those players that has a knack of making the right decision. A coach is going to love him because he knows week in week out he’s going to get the job done. The second try Greely wasn’t the guy who made the initial break it was Flook, Greely was at the bottom of the ruck when Flook was off along the sideline. Greely got up and made the effort to catch up with play but also read the play nicely and hit the pass from Campbell at pace and then held the pass beautifully to Ryan.
Go to commentsSharks deserved to be far further back by the last quarter. Their tackling was awful, their set pieces were disappointing, their defensive organization was poor (especially on the Kok side of the D line), they kept making unnecessary errors, and they never looked like cracking the Clermont defense during those first 60m. Masuku kept them in touch, with some help from the Clermont generosity on penalty opportunities. Agree with the writer of this article. It was belligerence, and ability to raise their pressure game just enough, that turned the last quarter into a Bok-style shutout. Clermont have a reputation of not playing the full 80m, and there was a bit of that for sure. But, quite often when the intensity of a team drops off in the last quarter credit is due to the opponent for tiring them out. At 60m, with the Kok try, you thought that just maybe the game was on. At 70m, with the Mapimpi contribution, one felt that Clermont were fading, while facing a team that would maintain the pressure game through the final whistle. Good win in the end, but the Sharks are still playing way below their potential. And with their resources, and a coach that has had enough time to figure things out, they are running out of excuses.
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