By Jason Harris
January 14 2007

Wing Tomas De Vedia led the way with four tries as Sarries beat Narbonne 47-20 at Vicarage to progress to the European Challenge Cup quarter finals. De Vedia put the Men in Black on the scoreboard after just 80 seconds as he squeezed in the right hand corner following a pass from Andy Farrell and doubled his tally not long afterwards.

Ben Russell chipped in with a drive off the side of a rolling maul while Narbonne prop Luc Ducalon was in the sin-bin before Farrell again turned provider for the Argentinian to complete a first half hat-trick with his third try on the stroke of half time, giving Saracens the try bonus point.

The try bonus point could have come eight minutes earlier but a try from a drving maul was ruled out by Italian referee Carlo Damasco after his touch judge alerted him to some foul play by Nick Lloyd, and the result was a penalty to the visitors.

Narbonne had a 10 minute spell of pressure mid-way through the first period, but all they could show for their efforts was a Cecric Rosalen penalty goal and with opposite number Glen Jackson converting all four Sarries scores, the teams changed ends with the home side up 28-3.

It took just three minutes of the second half for Russell to score his second after Neil De Kock first charged down a Narbonne clearance kick, then tapped the ball back infield before it could cross the left hand touchline and the Sarries blind side flanker touched down.

Dan Scarbrough crossed for try nubmer six after Sarries had a succession of five metre scrums and Jackson, with the last kick of his afternoon adding the extras to take his personal tally to 12 and put himself back to the top of the Challenge Cup points scoring table on 82 from his five games.

It was appropriate that De Vedia had the last word as he did the first when he scored his fourth try on 56 minutes, but Andy Farrell couldn't quite nail the touchline conversion.

Unfortunately for Sarries, that last word came 25 minutes too early as they eased their foot off the pedal to enable Narbonne to score three tries in the final quarter. 20-year-old right wing Sebastien Regy scored a try on his European debut on the hour as the visitors started to dominate proceedings while Sarries slumbered.

Six minutes later, replacement outside half Christopher Ruiz came on for Rosalen and promptly scored with his very first touch. Substitute hooker Fabien Rofes overthrew a line out 35 metres out and the ball bounced kindly for Ruiz who raced untouched to the posts before adding the conversion with his second touch of the match.

Narbonne continued to pressurise a now lacklustre Saracens and with Rodd Penney in the sin bin for slowing the ball down illegaly, Ducalon made some amends for his first half yellow card for punching Kris Chesney as he emerged from the bottom of a rolling maul for the try.

The bonus point win takes Saracens into the quarter finals on 24 points with a guaranteed minimum 7th seeding, but they will be looking to make the clean sweep of Pool 2 with a win at Hughenden against Glasgow Warriors on Friday night, and with it the certainty of a home quarter final and, should they win that, a home semi to boot.

Glasgow, however, will be out for revenge after their narrow 28-23 defeat at Vicarage Road in October and if they win by eight points or more to deny Sarries a losing bonus point, they will top the Pool table as they will have taken five match points (six if they get a try bonus) to Sarries' four over the two games between the teams.

Should this happen, Sarries will then have to wait until Saturday afternoon before the final shake-up is complete to see where they will be seeded, and to where they will travel in the quarter finals.

So, finally, the message to the team is a simple one - JUST GO UP THERE AND WIN, LADS!