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'A lot of people have talked rubbish about us... if you're telling me we're breaking the salary cap that's an interesting one'
By PA
Saracens forward Jamie George has hit at critics of the London club following their heartbreaking Heineken Champions Cup semi-final defeat at the hands of Racing 92 at La Defence Arena in Paris.
After leading for most of the game, the reigning champions suffered a 19-15 semi-final loss to their hosts as Juan Imhoff’s late converted try proved decisive.
Sarries were condemned to relegation from the Gallagher Premiership in January for breaching salary cap regulations.
They have two Premiership fixtures to fulfil – away to Worcester on Wednesday and at home to Bath next Sunday – before starting life in the Championship.
England hooker George summed up the uncertainty around the club, saying: “The element of the unknown is pretty horrendous.
“The way we saw it was that it was our last chance to compete for a little while.
“We wanted to finish it off and I’m gutted, I’m not going to lie. But at the same time I’m also incredibly proud.
“A lot of people have talked rubbish about us for a long time. But if you look at the squad here probably our best player was Dom Morris, and if you’re telling me we’re breaking the salary cap that’s an interesting one.
“I don’t know what we’re going to be facing, but the young players coming through are hugely motivated and that is the exciting thing for me.
“This defeat is a tough one to take because we had control of the game.
“We felt comfortable defensively, but a bit of magic from Finn (Russell) and they got that try at the end.”
Saracens head coach Mark McCall branded it the end of an era. “This has been an incredible period for us in the last five seasons. This was our 23rd knock-out game in either Europe or the Premiership and we’ve won 19 of those games, which is an incredible record.
“We put our heart and soul into that game and we can be proud of the players. They are a special group.”
Saracens won't compete in Europe again until 2022 at the earliest.
PA
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Latest Comments
If Pollock is in the squad, who gets left out?
"I think the Eddie Jones style development player approach is whats called for"
(i) Why?
(ii) The churn of players under Eddie Jones was generally considered to be quite a bad thing. Do you want Guy Pepper, Ted Hill, Ben Curry, etc. to give up and go to France like Marchant did?
(iii) England already have a really young squad, and especially a young back row. If they do badly in the six nations Borthwick will probably lose his job, so shouldn't they prioritise winning in the short term and developing the players already in the squad, rather than bringing in newer, younger, guys?
(iv) England have a development tour in June. If you really want Pollock to be in the squad prior to graduating the u20s, why not wait until the summer?
Go to commentsWhen England's defence was able to get into shape it could be dominant though (especially in the game against NZ). Is the number of tackles really the main issue?
I get that making loads of tackles is tiring, but so is building multi-phase attacks. I'm just worried England would get tired out from attacking, then struggle to get set when they're subjected to counter attacks.
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