By Rupes
January 17 2007

And so the pool games of the European Challenge Cup come to an end, with Saracens having got themselves into a position whereby they can earn a home quarter final (and a home semi-final if they win that!) with a victory against Glasgow Warriors this Friday evening. If you disregard the form book for a moment and look purely at names, then given Saracens’ record this season against teams with the epithet “Warriors” (Won 1, Lost 1) then the game is in the balance. Will it be 2-1, will it be 1-2, or is 1-1-1 a possibility – either the first or the last would suit ideally.

Ok, that's a little obscure, so let's try maths. They are simple; a Sarries win, no problems. We have a home quarter final, also a home semi. Let’s ignore the draw for the moment. But what makes this game so difficult to call is the prospect of the Glasgow win – if that happens, it is Glasgow who will have the home quarter final, with Sarries forced to travel to some obscure rugby outpost (Bristol, maybe). With that in mind, it is a fair bet that Glasgow will be “up” for this game, big style. Press reports this week have suggested that Sean Lineen, their coach, had a meeting before the team left Parma last weekend to start the process of focusing his men on this Friday’s game there and then. You can guarantee that he will have continued this focus all week, with Glasgow likely to come roaring out of the blocks from the kick off.

And this is where the mental aspect of this game comes in – if this was the 1st or 3rd game in the pool, we’d view it in a different way; the fear of losing the home quarter final wouldn’t be looming as large as it is now. As it is, the players will be aware of the “we’re already qualified anyway” scenario and that always plays on the mind. Will it affect the performance?

Director of Rugby Alan Gaffney seems to have spent a great deal of his time so far at Saracens working on the mental side of the players’ games, not least in the way of giving away far fewer penalties than used to be the case. That is imperative on Friday night as, with a couple of easy penalties and a bit of momentum, Glasgow could easily push on and leave Sarries in trouble. The performance has to be professional, hard-working and disciplined – anything else and we could be the architects of our own downfall.

Team-wise, nothing has been announced as yet. It is a fair bet that Saracens will show several changes from the win over Narbonne last week, the majority being in the pack. The main points for discussion relate to which hooker will play (do we read anything into the fact that Byrne played all 80 last week?), which of the many back-row options will start and which winger from last week will be replaced by Kameli Ratuvou? For my money, I’d start with Cairns in the front row, a back row of Vyvyan, Hill and Skirving, with de Vedia being paired with Ratuvou.

The bottom line though, is that a win gives us a great chance of going a long way in this competition. Personally, I think it’s too close to call as Glasgow are a decent side who have a good record at home and are hugely driven by the prospect of the home quarter final – we can be great on our day and, if we play to our full ability, we should come away with 4 points. But, as ever, who knows which Saracens will turn up.