1
Saracens beaten for the second time in three weeks by Ealing
By Liam Heagney
2019 Gallagher Premiership and Heineken Cup champions Saracens have been beaten for the second time in recent weeks by Ealing in the Trailfinders Cup, this time going down 39-26 at home at the Stonex Stadium.
The north-west London club, automatically relegated from the Premiership for repeated salary cap breaches, were beaten 27-26 at Vallis Way when the sides first met on January 16.
That was a match in which Billy Vunipola started for Saracens in front of England coach Eddie Jones. Three weeks, later, with England busy on Guinness Six Nations duty against Scotland, Ealing enjoyed a more generous margin of victory.
Dom Morris scored a pair of tries in the opening 16 minutes to give Saracens a promising start but Ealing eventually settled and they fought back to lead 15-12 at the break following tries from Rayn Smith and Will Davis.
Saracens regained the lead soon after the restart, Rotimi Segun scoring, but Ealing then retook the initiative with tries on 51 and 64 minutes from Dean Hammond and Pat Howard. A Shaun Malton try on 76 minutes then confirmed the win before Saracens struck for a consolation score through Kapeli Pifeleti.
It was Saracens' third loss in the tournament as they also had to concede their away match with Doncaster through not being able to field a team, and they will now look to pick up the pieces when they host the Knights in London next weekend. The three-team tournament is serving as a pre-season warm-up for the Championship season which is due to start next month.
Saracens are favourites to win promotion to the 2021/22 Premiership but the build-up to the second-tier league has been affected by concerns that not all twelve Championship clubs will participate in a tournament supposed to be made up of two conferences of six teams each.
Trending on RugbyPass
2
'Chaos': Lawes sheds light on the social that ended 2 England careers
3
How much Toulon are paying new signing Antoine Frisch
4
Ex-Ireland wing brands Six Nations champs 'not that good'
5
Latest Comments
wel the crusaders were beaten by a queensland reds side that hadnt beaten them at home since 1999 and queensland reds partied like it was 1999
Go to commentsThink it was a great defensive performance by Northampton. They didn't have stage fright in the first half, the Nienaber defense smothered them. They limited Leinster to 15-3 in the first half. It could have been over by then. A great try from Leinster in the start of the second half looked to have sealed it. But Byrne missed another conversion. Northampton started trying little kicks behind the Leinster wingers. Leinster messed one and Smith brilliantly made the conversion. Leinster decided to tighten the game after Byrne missed a straight forward penalty. A few errors got NH into the 22 and they scored and converted with a few minutes left. Another brilliant steal from Lawes saw NH have a final attack which was turned over by Conan. A classic semi final. World record attendance of 82,300. Leinsters 3 week preparation warranted for this one.
Go to comments