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The in-house presentation which Mark McCall hopes has relegated Saracens ready for Championship start
By Chris Jones
Mark McCall believes pre-season losses to Ealing in the Trailfinders Cup have ensured his Saracens players are under no illusions about the Championship task they will face to take the former English and European champions back into the Gallagher Premiership at this first attempt.
Automatically relegated to the Championship after being found guilty of repeated salary cap breaches, Saracens start their second-tier campaign at Cornish Pirates this Saturday.
McCall, the London club’s highly successful director of rugby, has been using players who have experienced life in the second division of English rugby to explain to others in his squad exactly what challenges they will face over the next ten games to earn a place in the promotion playoffs,
Unable to call upon his England players until after the Guinness Six Nations, McCall said: “We played our last meaningful match back in October so it has been a while since then and while we have played five friendly matches, everyone has been waiting for the Championship to start.
"The friendlies have been a big learning curve for us in terms of what the Championship is like and how well-coached the teams are and how proud they are. We have lost two of the five games and have experienced to a large degree what it is like.
“It's useful for us to have players who have played there before. Alex Day, Will Hooley and Alex Lewington gave a presentation to the squad about their experiences in the Championship and what we could expect. It was a brilliant presentation and Alex Lewington was a part of a team that had been relegated [London Irish] and what that felt like for him. I'm glad that on top of that we have had the experiences of the five games and seeing first-hand how tough it is going to be.”
Saracens most recent financial accounts made it clear the club must regain Premiership status to ensure their economic survival even though owner Nigel Wray has confirmed he is willing to continue spending millions on the club. McCall added: “It is very important to get back up and we have ten games to try and get into the top two. If we do that then there will be a two-legged playoff final. For now, it is just good to be playing again.”
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Latest Comments
GB is England, Scotland, Wales. They are the 3 constituent countries in Great Britain. Ergo playing only those three countries is a tour of GB. The difference between GB and the UK is Northern Ireland. It's not a huge deal to be accurate and call places by their correct name. But please refrain from your idiotic attempts to BS that GB=UK. It doesn't.
Go to commentsThe 2023 draw was only criticized when it became apparent that the top 5 sides in the world were on the same side of the draw. Nowhere did they discuss the decision to backtrack to 2019 rankings which ensured that England and Wales (ranked #12 in 2023) were ranked top4.
The parties who trashed out the schedule were England Rugby, NZ Rugby and ITV. It is bordering on corrupt that a Rugby nation has the power to schedule its opponents to play a major match the week before facing them in a QF.
You won't find commentary by members of the relevant committees because a committee did not make the scheduling decision. I have never heard members of World Rugby speak out on the draw or scheduling issues.
For example in 2015 Japan were hammered by Scotland 4 days after beating SA. The criticism only happens after a cock up.
A fair pool schedule is pretty straightforward: The lowest two tanked teams must play on last pool day but not against each other. That means that TV can focus on promoting big matches with a Tier2 involved for that Friday.
Why does NZ Always get its preferred slot playing the hardest pool match on day 1?
Why do other teams eg France, Ireland, Scotland get so often scheduled to play a hard match the week before the QFs?
If you believe the rules around scheduling are transparent then please point me in the right direction?
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