By Whaley Shark
December 7 2014

As I walked back to my car, parked on the airfield, I walked past an autogyro which had its engine running and it blew my glove into the traffic. It hung up on the roof rack of a passing car and disappeared round the corner, much to the amusement of the bloke fiddling with the autogyro’s engine. Hey ho, I thought, got in the car and headed for home, mourning the loss of the glove. But then, as I queued to get on to the main road, there it was in the road, run over a couple of times but definitely my glove. It’s the little victories that make me happy!

Which is as well, because the rugby didn’t end too happily. It started with a strong Saracens’ foray into our 22 and a straightforward scrum penalty. However, we came back strongly, fielding a clearance on half way, winning a penalty which Danny put into the left corner to set up one of our trademark rolling mauls for a converted Magnus Lund try.

Saracens came back as we misjudged a touch kick which went out on the full. It should have been an innocuous lineout on half way but Charlie Hodgson danced his way past some rather lackadaisical tackling and, as the cover closed in, slipped the ball to Owen Farrell, who just made it over the try line. The conversion was wide, giving Sarries just the narrowest lead, 7-8, after 15 minutes. For the next 20 minutes or so, the defences dominated and the ball spent quite a lot of time in the air. The final scores of the half were an exchange of penalties to send the teams in 10-11.

We got a taste of our own medicine early in the second half. Saracens did the penalty to the corner, followed by rolling a maul to score, trick and, and 10-16, started to open something of a gap. There was another 20 minute arm-wrestle before the deadlock was broken by one of Andrei Ostrikov’s trademark solo efforts, finishing off a move started by our running back a loose clearance. Nick Macleod, on for Danny Cipriani, couldn’t land the conversion though, and Saracens retained a one point lead.

Saracens extended the lead to four points with their very next attack, as Owen Farrell slotted a drop goal and, as the clock started to run down, we had to chase the try. We set up a couple of good attacking positions but just couldn’t get over the line and, finally, as desperation set in, a period of sustained pressure ended as we were over-eager and gave Saracens a penalty to end the match and set up the parable of the lost glove.

So what to make of that? It may have marked our effective exit from European competition, but we went down fighting. Saracens certainly earned their four points and will know they’ve been in a match. The scrum seemed pretty solid and the lineout was totally different from the shambles of just a couple of weeks ago. Mike Haley continues to impress hugely. I guess we concentrate on the Premiership from now on, but I’m looking forward to that with a degree of optimism.