"Follow Eddie’s plan"

By JonJo
January 9 2009

You might as well know at once that I can’t tell you the result because my crystal balls are frozen. (Actually, looking at my lowly position in the Prediction League my foresight doesn’t seem too reliable at the best of times). But there will be some very depressed people heading home on Sunday evening if we haven’t done the treble over Bristol.

Although with the two previous scores being 16-23 and 22-24 (in the EDF), you might think the gap is not that wide. The latter match saw a rare run out for Tom Ryder and Ed Thrower (Penney being injured in the warm-up), and a week off for Nils giving Mosese the full 80 minutes. It was a narrow victory for what was to some extent a development Sarries side against pretty much a full strength Bristol unit on its home turf.

Factoid: the two Bristol matches were Ben Skirving’s first and second starts at 6.

Anyway, it is obvious that Bris are at the bottom of the GP table and can’t beg borrow or steal a decent win anywhere else, so they must be looking at Saracens’ solid position of 7^th in the table and thinking that they can do the same as Newcastle, Worcester, Irish and Quins have done in recent seasons when they couldn’t win anywhere else: take 4 if not 5 points out of the game.

Saracens’ results this season haven’t been brilliant, but we have come closer than the scores might indicate, with a few problems occurring in the last few minutes of a number of close fought games. Two weeks ago we defeated top-of-the-table London Irish, and last week we were close to beating Gloucester. Interestingly, Bob Casey said after the Irish game, “Taking nothing away from Saracens, that was the worst we have played all season”. To me that was a big compliment to Eddie’s game plan to nullify their counter-attack game. We only got it really wrong once, which led directly to their try.

No question we are not the real deal yet, but I think we are getting there. Confidence, or if you like self-belief, plays a huge part in any sport, and we still lack that final certainty. We have also showed great defensive strength over the last couple of weeks with rather less attacking flair. If we can just follow Eddie’s plan of sharpening the edge against Bristol, we should have two weeks to hone it further against Viadana and Mont de Marsan before the trips to Franklin’s Gardens and Kingston Park.

Bristol first, though, and they are a very dogged bunch, staring relegation in the face, so they will not go down without a scrap. I haven’t attempted to work out all the permutations, but my feeling would be that if we hope to be anywhere near the top of the table at the end of the season, we need to start getting some 5-pointers now. 15 points from the next three GP games would be good, but we are some way short of that sort of performance to judge by the last few weeks. 12 points would be something, but with Sale, Quins, Leicester (twice), Worcester and Wasps to come I can’t see it being enough for better than mid-table.

As regards team news, Michael Owen is out with a knee injury but this is where good cover for each position starts to reap benefits, and we have a very potent-looking team. Bristol are also suffering from a number of injuries in the forwards – Clarke, Regan, Hobson, El Abd, Grieve and Pennycook – which they could well do without.

This is one we should win, and if we have any pretensions to the top of the table, we must win convincingly, with a bonus point. I only wish I could forget those banana skins that we have slipped-up on in recent seasons, but my prediction is 31-10 (with my fingers crossed).

Saracens

Chris Wyles, Richard Haughton, Kevin Sorrrell, Brad Barritt, Noah Cato, Glen Jackson, Neil de Kock, Matias Aguero, Fabio Ongaro, Cencus Johston, Steve Borthwick, Chris Jack, Wikus Van Heerden, Andy Saull, Ben Skirving

Replacements:

Andy Kyriacou, Nick Lloyd, Cobus Visagie, Hugh Vyvyan, Mosese Rauluni, Gordon Ross, Rodd Penney

Bristol

Vunga Lilo; Mat Turner, Neil Brew, Ed Barnes, Nathan Brew; Adrian Jarvis, Shaun Perry; Mark Irish, Scott Linklater, Darren Crompton; Nathan Budgett, Robert Sidoli; Matt Salter (capt), Alfie To'oala, Dan Ward-Smith
Replacements:
David Blaney, Wayne Thompson, Roy Winters, James Phillips, Graeme Beveridge, Luke Eves, Lee Robinson