Saracens
Saracens v Sale Sharks Premiership Report
Pre game flares
By saracensfan62
October 4 2026
The feel-good factor from that excellent 5-pointer win at Welford Road lasted precisely one week and today brought us crashing back down to reality. Today’s game was flat and error-ridden that Sale Sharks exploited with ruthless efficiency. Sale are definitely bottom 3 (if not 2nd worst) team in the league and SOMEHOW the team once again delivered a horribly underwhelming show at home to secure 1 losing bonus point and nothing more. This report is naturally a short one as I somewhat lost interest about 60 minutes in and started cooking dinner instead! I should note I was not in attendance at StoneX today, couldn’t get out of plans made months ago and was forced to watch from the tv. Saracens ticketing office have made it impossible to try and transfer tickets over to anybody with their ridiculous and dysfunctional App (why do we even need an app anyway?) so, I couldn’t even give my own ticket to a mate who wanted to go. Grr grumble over.
First Half
The game didn't get off to an ideal start, with Sale opening the scoring inside the first few minutes. Nathan Jibulu was the beneficiary, dotting down from the driving maul for an early lead from a well-worked catch and drive. Fair enough it did look pretty unstoppable. 0-7, 5 or so mins in and the already-empty looking
A yellow card for Alex Lozowski and a 20-minute red card for Jacques Vermeulen, both for high tackles, kept referee Joe James and TMO Hamish Smales busy. This gave Sarries the platform to do some real damage but they failed to do so. It looked as though we did get a score halfway through the first period after Nick Tompkins crashed over from short range under the sticks but the try was ruled out for an earlier infringement. So, so frustrating and we were back to stage one.
After 15 further minutes of banging on the proverbial door, Sale finally cracked. Eroni Mawi crashed over for the first Sarries try of the game. However, Burke’s previously excellent goal kicking seemed to abandon him this week and the conversion fell just wide of the posts, meaning Sale took a slender two-point lead into the break. 5-7 the half time score and that more reflected how poor Saracens were then Sale good.
Second Half
Sale started the second half in similar fashion to the first, scoring early on into proceedings. George Ford's up-and-under kick was collected (totally uncontested by the way?! shocking...) who worked his way through some very, very poor defence to score. Ford had clearly identified that the Saracens back three were vulnerable under the high ball and went straight back to that well after the restart. O'Flaherty's footwork to beat the covering defenders Fergus Burke and Alec Clarey was excellent (did anyone else notice Jack Bracken’s ‘dodgy’ hamstring as he pulled up??) but it was Ford's game management that was the real story. Two minutes into the second half and the platform Saracens needed to build their comeback had already been knocked away. Normally we’d need a Jamie George or an Owen Farrell to come in and steady the ship, but both these 2 are seemingly injured or unavailable at the minute.
The game fell into a very cagey rhythm. With both sides struggling to string phases together without unforced errors, however, as Sale had the scoreboard on their side, the visitors were happy to allow the game to slow down heading towards the hour mark. Herein lies Sale’s playbook in its purest form – they strangle any tempo the opposition side develop and win ugly. Sound familiar?...
Sanderson's side executed it to perfection and Saracens, without the ball and without momentum, had no way through.
A late score from Charlie Bracken kept sarries in the fight late on however, it wasn't to be and Sale ground out the game and got the win.
Conclusion
Quite a few players really need to be looked at and their spots in the 23 questioned. I saw a lot of anonymous faces today who either seemed disinterested or not at the races. I shan’t name any names but I think we all know who I’m thinking about.
Joe Shaw will have a short week and a long list of problems to address before Bristol come to town. We need to bounce back against Bristol and do it fast. Cannot have a repeat of today again at StoneX, or else what was a poor attendance today will only get worse. Come on Sarries.
Photo Credit - Darren Stephens. Many thanks :)
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Scrum
Defence (ie missing basic tackles)
Aerial defence and the back 3
Errors that should not be happening at the professional level!
We saw enough of him not doing that three seasons ago cumulating in the insipid surrender to Sale in the final game of the regular season and again last season numerous times especially in the European games to state fairly unequivocally he simply doesn't do that anymore. He's a player who leads by example whose body no longer lets him do that.
Moving on from him as a player and fading Totem is the best thing we can do for this playing group.
As a coach and inspiration off field he may well be an entirely more positive and beneficial thing for the club and I would love to see that.
The only thing I would disagree with is the scrum being a key work on. I was concerned before the game but felt we came out on top overall.
The O'Flaherty try was utterly pathetic from us
Sale are not great. They are big & ugly but don't create anything. Really horrible brand of rugby to watch.
We got beaten up around the tackle area throughout the match.
Our defence was really shocking for two tries Sale scored in the second half.
Our scrum did Ok even after we replaced the props - I think we won more scrum pens than Sale.
Why didn't we contest in the lineout?
If flapping your arm forward well away from your body to prevent a kick from reaching a probable try scoring opportunity is a charge down under the relevant law, the law is just plain wrong.
Our lack of pace in attack & reluctance to spread the ball wide was disturbing (especially against 13 men) - I was at the Captain's Run on Friday & this looked very impressive then.
Why kick away the ball with 2 mins to go - twice???
Enough rambling. It's gone. we have to be 200% better at everything next week.
I do think same players who have shown the same inconsistency over the last few seasons need to be held accountable, especially with some of the young talent behind them.
What happened to the Wolfpack defence of years ago? Like a sieve this days...
Quote:TommyKentish
I do think same players who have shown the same inconsistency over the last few seasons need to be held accountable, especially with some of the young talent behind them.
Which players are you thinking of.
For me something has gone badly wrong this week as this was such a top to bottom bad performance.
That's as poorly as I've seen Burke play and tbh Williams wasn't much better he just had a few highlights.
We left two walk-ins out there because players who made a great break didn't look for the support that was there but most painfully we seem to have made a conscious decision not to back the attack that was so successful for us last season but to go back to how we played the mid-season.
In all the talk of Venter's job title the tidbit that got dropped was McCall is very much still about and a very active part of the "ticket"
Is that a good thing, does it stop us moving on properly from his time in charge, was that ever going to happen with Venter coming in.
I honestly don't know but today was a horrible reminder of how grim much of last season was and another reminder we have now largely wasted 3 seasons with a quality squad but indifferent coaching.
Literally anyone tell me what todays plan was and how we thought that was going to beat anyone.
With that being said, I’d seriously think about the following changes. I wouldn’t pair Tizard and Isiekwe together again at 5 & 6. Zero carrying (especially with Maro at 4), they’ll make some tackles but not dominant ones. If they’re there to clear rucks then that went to pot yesterday. How many times have we been completely derailed by the other team being slow to roll away or getting in the 9 channel? Teams will always do that if the ref lets them, where is our plan B or plan to get them out of the way? Sodeke should’ve been rewarded after his impact off the bench last week.
I think we need to seriously consider whether Dan should spend more time in the backrow. I’m not giving up on him because I think he can get the throwing right with a consistent run but unfortunately it looks like he’ll be out for a while.
Burke’s kicking looked (like a lot of other things) to have turned a corner last week but deserted him again this week. I’d like to see Hall in at 13 and hopefully he’ll stand up to the pressure of a prem game. That would mean moving Tompkins to 12 or dropping him which would be unbelievably harsh considering he’s been one of our better performers over the two matches. I thought Va’enuku was ok yesterday but has obvious limits in terms of passing particularly. Still he can be a longer term project.
There’s also zero point in having either Daly or Malins at 15 if we’re not actually going to use them as a playmaking option out the back or at first receiver. At which point, stick Bracken at 15, at least he’ll scare some teams with his counterattacking.
It’s only two games in so I appreciate it can sound like catastrophising but it’s all too familiar with previous seasons and even by that standard, a particularly poor performance across the board.
That being said:
Earl and Martin need to be starting as we arent good enough to be leaving proven internationals on the bench.
Might be time to give Charlie a break and a chance to work on his kicking. Tom James is an experienced Prem player.
Scrap the 6/2. Allows us to get Hall and an outside back on to the bench. Michelow and Sodeke should be rewarded for the impact they have shown by keeping their bench spots ahead of bigger names. Potentially one even starts with Barbeary dropping to the bench.
Otherwise we are swapping players for the sake of it.
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