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The only thing driving Saracens to win more trophies

Owen Farrell, the Saracens captain raises the Gallagher Premiership trophy after their victory during the Gallagher Premiership Final between Saracens and Sale Sharks at Twickenham Stadium on May 27, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

It has been over four years since Saracens last lifted the Investec Champions Cup, and in that time they have been through a lot.

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Two of those years they were not even competing in the competition after spending a season in the Championship in 2020/21, and obviously failing to qualify as a result the following season. Those two absent seasons were bookended by a semi-final loss to Racing 92 in 2020 and a quarter-final loss to eventual champions La Rochelle last season.

Saracens confirmed their return to the top of domestic rugby last season by winning the Gallagher Premiership, but they may still have a point to prove on the European front that they are again the force they once were.

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    The loss to Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle at the Stade Marcel Deflandre in April was particularly chastening for the three-time champions as they were physically dominated up front in a manner unseen in recent years. Now appearing to be firing on all cylinders with the return of their World Cup contingent after a shaky start to the campaign, the London outfit may well have revenge on the agenda when they turn their attention to the Champions Cup with a trip to Loftus Versfeld to take on the Bulls on December 9.

    But for captain Owen Farrell and his team, none of that seems to be going through their minds. Instead, they seem to be driven by one thing and one thing only, and that is their love of winning titles. Success breeds success, and having tasted Champions Cup success on three occasions, Farrell recently said that the desire to reach the pinnacle of the club game again is all that is fueling his teammates.

    “We would love to win a European cup this year because we’d love to win a European cup,” the England captain said at the season launch of the Investec Champions Cup at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

    “It’s not because of things that have happened before and so on. A good few of us have been lucky enough to have the chance to win it before and that taste for that is massive. And we want to be back up there. We’ve not been up there for a few years and we want to improve on last year and be at the back end of the tournament.”

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    With that said, it does not mean that Saracens have not learnt from the past. The loss to La Rochelle was perhaps the most severe and humbling lesson Saracens have been taught by any team in over a decade. Farrell not only believes that such lessons will be beneficial for the upcoming campaign, but he is sure they actually benefited the men in black for the denouement of the Premiership season, as they finished at the summit of the league and defeated Sale Sharks in the final too.

    “It certainly taught us a lot of lessons at the back end of last year, this tournament,” he said.

    “It certainly showed us some things we needed to improve towards the end, going back into the Premiership, and I thought we ended up doing that pretty well. But we don’t want to make those mistakes again in the tournament this year. We want to be challenging, we want to be bringing the best out of ourselves in the big occasions.”

    Saracens get their campaign underway with their trip to South Africa to face the Bulls before hosting Connacht at the StoneX Stadium a week later.

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    BigGabe 1 hour ago
    'Love him or hate him, Henry Pollock has got the rugby world talking.'

    Well, I would disagree with your take that you don’t take the p*** out of the opposition.


    Sledging and posturing is very much a part of the game - “four more years”/"just a **** richie mccaw”/any swan dive celebration/English yelling when they win minor penalties/etc etc. Cricket has much the same when a wicket keeper chats in a batsman’s ears, but no one complains about it. Just because we can’t hear what goes on a ruck or maul, or see what goes on, doesn’t mean it doesn’t go on. Sport is emotional. Let’s not pretend that rugby has a history of behaving like absolute gentleman before the final whistle goes off.


    The spirit of rugby…now this is an interesting one. What does that mean? 2-3 years ago, the 6-2/7-1 split was against the spirit of rugby, but now it is used by club and country. Does this mean the spirit of rugby can change? In 1974, the Lions had an infamous Call 99. Today, teams are still getting into fights. Other sports don’t do this. Is this the spirit of rugby? I think this phrase is one of those useful ones that means everything and nothing and can be used by both sides of the fence, as well as the fence itself, to justify what they want to see. But perhaps we should not be looking at Pollock, but at ourselves. Are we (you) all not giving a self-described wind up merchant exactly what he wants? I think this conservative group of sports fans needs to realise that just bc they have viewed rugby a certain way for a long time, does not mean that it necessarily needs to be viewed that way for ever and ever amen. That’s gatekeeping and the generations to come don’t like or respect it. As rugby culture breaks into new markets, it needs to constantly adjust.

    9 Go to comments
    N
    Nickers 2 hours ago
    USA team in Super Rugby Pacific is not the answer right now, but this is

    The question for any expansion is - what is the point?


    On one hand talking about expanding for commercial reasons, but then saying younger squad members would play giving big names a rest making it more for development purposes?


    The problem with SRP is it serves two masters - fans who want a good competition to watch, but also the national teams in developing players so they can go on to become international players.


    The case for maximising young player development:


    A major problem NZ and Australia have is at U20s. AR and NZR would be best served by investing in proper U20 super rugby competition that runs in conjunction with Super Rugby, rather than the one-off carnival style thing that happens at the moment. 20 year olds coming out of France and England in particular, but also France are noticeably more developed than the equivalent players from NZ, Australia and even SA.


    NZ and Australia probably both have one too many teams in SR. If you’re taking a long term view they are best served by cutting teams from the comp now and improving the quality even more. Although MP have been good this year there is also an argument for cutting them too, and reducing to 8 teams that all play each other home and away in a round robin. It would be a ridiculously strong competition with a lot of depth if all the best players are redistributed.


    This in conjunction with a full U20s competition (possibly playing just one round rather than 2) would make NZ and Australia international teams much stronger with a lot more depth.


    But that solution would make less money and cost more.


    NPC would need to be fully amateur or semi-pro at best in this model. If you cross reference the losses NZR posted today with the costs they have previously published about operating the NPC, you can attribute a huge amount, if not all of the losses, to the NPC. At the moment this is putting way too much money into a failing high performance competition at the expense of development.

    12 Go to comments
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