By No,13
April 27 2007

With Saracens only 3 points from the top of the Premiership and Worcester 33 points behind and only 1 point ahead of relegation placed Northampton Saints, a casual supporter might see this as a game that Saracens should walk away with. Well, maybe. Worcester are where they are because of a disastrous start to the season. They did not win a game until they visited Vicarage Rd when, after leading 17-3, we let them back into the game - which they won 17-20. It still hurts thinking about it.

If we look at their record through March and early April we see consecutive wins against Bath (21-15), Sale (12-18) and Newcastle (23-21), followed by a narrow loss at Bristol (22-17). Not a bad record. Earlier in the season they held Wasps to a 3-3 draw and lost to Leicester by only 6-13.

The Worcester squad is pretty cosmopolitan with a fair amount of southern hemisphere experience and a good selection of players with experience of Welsh rugby. They have a big, strong, pack. Giant lock forward Craig Gillies (2.03m and 112kg) is available for selection after a two week ban, to join the youngest Quinell, Craig, (2.01m and 140kg) their top try scorer with 9 tries.

They have a very experienced front row with Welsh international Chris Horsman and Tony Windo at prop. Behind the scrum they have South African Thinous Delport at full-back and, England qualified, Australian, Shane Drahm at fly-half. Ex- Saracen Matt Powell has taken over the scrum half role following Gomarsall’s departure.

The weather forecast for Saturday is a warm and sunny, similar to the conditions when Worcester played their last match against London Irish. The Guardian report on that game gives a hint at an appropriate game plan: “Two tries in each half were too much for Worcester, their big pack visibly wilting in the sun as Irish executed the plan of moving the big men around in the heat”.

That plan is fine if we can get enough ball. Although, in general, not at all bad this season, our line-out was not good last week against Bath and we have to remember that Gillies has a very good line-out record. Worcester will also have noticed how effective Bath were in driving from the fringes of the breakdown and no doubt will want to play a similar tight, forward dominated, game. Hopefully we will have spent some time this week working out a more effective defence for that style of play than we had against Grewcock last Sunday.

So, even without the play-off and relegation issues that have hit the headlines, this would be a much tougher game than one might expect from league positions. For Saracens, the loss to Bath last week was really hard to take and every player will want to make amends. I feel confident that if we can get and retain the ball and play at a very fast pace then we can win this game and get four tries. Giving away possession will allow Worcester to play to a game plan that will not suite us.

The Saracens team selection is interesting and a little surprising with Ongaro and Penney getting the nod over Cairns and Scarbrough. Penney had a good game against Bath but I’m not sure he has shown the consistent performance that Scarborough has shown throughout the season. It is a bit hard on Dan Scarbrough. I don’t know that we have seen enough of Ongaro recently to judge whether he is the right choice ahead of Cairns. Fullarton’s selection is easier to understand. He is an excellent line-out strategist and is probably there to combat Gillies.

Great to see Ratuvou back. Moses Raulini gets selected on the bench ahead of Dickens – perhaps some rotation here as I thought Dickens looked pretty good when he came on for the second half against Bath. Still a very good side and one that is definitely capable of coming away with a win.

I’m just off to fill in those ticket ballot forms for the semi-final ….