Saracens cut Exeter's lead with Harlequins victory
Saracens bounced back from a poor first-half display to record a 27-20 victory over Harlequins and cut Exeter Chiefs' lead at the top of the Premiership to four points.
After defeat to Bath last time out, Saracens were sluggish early on at London Stadium as Quins opened up a 17-3 advantage, Marcus Smith scoring 12 points.
Two penalties from Alex Lozowski were all Saracens had to show at the break but the defending champions rallied with Will Skelton grabbing two tries.
Schalk Burger began Sarries' comeback as he barged over from close range, before Skelton turned the game around in the space of nine minutes.
It was a second successive defeat for Quins, who drop to fourth in the table after Gloucester beat Wasps 27-14 at Kingsholm.
After a sluggish start, Gloucester eventually found their rhythm, fighting back from 11-0 down to lead 14-11 at the break.
Wasps were unable to replicate their impressive start after the break as Jake Polledri's try and three penalties from Billy Twelvetrees gave Gloucester victory.
Elsewhere, Worcester Warriors boosted their survival hopes with a 27-25 win over Bristol Bears, while fellow strugglers Newcastle Falcons made it three wins in-a-row with a 22-17 triumph over Sale Sharks at St James' Park.
Where did it go wrong for Ireland:
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I like Andy’s critical approach to all hot issues especially when it comes to the rugby big “bosses”. However, sorry Andy, I don’t support your “we shouldn’t be questioning the integrity of Karl Dickson or any other official”. May I ask why? They do have a lot of responsibility, but they are people like us with all their sins and weaknesses. We have to respect their decision during the games, but why they became untouchable afterwards and people cannot even criticize them and the ones, who does express their concerns, got punished for publicly analyzing their mistakes and asking questions. If they believe they did right, there shouldn’t be a problem for any of the refs to answer these “questions” publicly. I don’t really remember such cases. However, I do remember how Craig Joubert shown his running skills in 2015 or Pascal Gauzere shined in Cardiff in 2021. I do believe that Rassie, as anybody else, had a full right to share his vision of Nic Berry’s performance the same year. I do not support the hate in any form especially in public one, but creating the cast of untouchable refs and rugby bosses is not for me. As for Karl, he had all means to question his appointment for the game and since I don’t now whether he did it, blaming just RFU wouldn’t be quite correct at this moment. I love the game of rugby and almost every time I watch it I don’t support any team, I just wanna see the good game and fair referring. Sorry, Karl. last Saturday you got my Craig Joubert”s award of the round. It is up to Karl to prove that I am wrong, not to Andy or RFU’s corporate bla-bla-bla. Something like that…
Go to commentswell remember the blues had a guy called jed rowlands for a season. remember scott took his coaching team with him give him time
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