By Rupes
January 2 2006

The travelling Fez went to Welford Road with a sense of trepidation after last week's game - would be concede less than 60 points to Leicester's 1st XV? How many yellow cards would we get? And would anyone under the height of 5'5 be able to see anything from the Crumbie Terrace? Before we start the report though, two happenings of note. In chronological order, Ches led the side out - at the time, we didn't know that it was his 250th appearance for the club. Many congratulations to TMC, I hope the club recognise this feat at the next home game. And, at half time, the best news of all was to hear that Matt Hampson, the Leicester and England U21 prop, was well enough to have been at Welford Road to watch the game - the ovation from Tigers' fans and Fez alike was quite something.

To the game itself and a Saracens team which was unrecognisable from the one which gave London Irish a late Christmas present. The losing bonus point was throughly deserved and the 7 point gap possibly wasn't a true reflection on the game as a whole.

10 minutes in and a try from Ben Johnston, winger for the day. A penalty given in midfield, a quick tap and go from Adam Powell and Johnston over 10m from the corner. No conversion though, so 3-5 to Sarries it remained. Far from the walkover many had expected, this was a proper game; both sides testing each other out and, in the main, defences holding firm. Penalties from the respective 10s made it 9-8 to the Tigers, extended to 21-8 after 28 minutes. The try for Leicester was a Penalty Try and, with both eyes open, you couldn't argue with the decision. The Saracens scrum was heading towards the front row of the Alliance and Leicester Stand at an alarming rate, the front row stood up and Roy headed to the posts. No complaints. Sarries then dug in, scored the only remaining points of the half through 2 penalties and went in 21-14 behind.

The second half was revealing - for what Sarries did rather than didn't do. Dave Seymour came on for Captain Vyvyan, Ches taking over the captaincy for the first time in a Premiership game. 8 minutes into the half, Ben Kay was binned for an apparent shoulder charge. The penalty went to the corner, the catch and drive was good, maul pulled down, penalty to Saracens. Repeat process - maul down, Rowntree binned, Leicester down to 13 men at Welford Road. Repeat process again - twice. Eventually, Sarries tried to move it right but Leicester's defence was out of the top drawer. After several phases, a Leicester scrum was awarded 10m out. With both sin-binnings nearly complete, Andy Goode then showed us all what he can do with a 60m penalty - 27-14 and no points against 13 men.

By 70 minutes, we were within 7 points, 2 Jackson penalties making it 27-20. And Sarries were holding their own; the stats would likely show that the majority of the play in the second half took place closer to the Leicester posts than those of the visitors. And then the old frailties resurfaced; Varndell skinned TV and Scabs, although it must be said that there were 2 missed tackles in his run to the line. Goodey converted, 34-20 with only 8 minutes left. But Sarries didn't stop there; another spell of pressure led to TV scoring, Jackson converted and 34-27 with a bonus point. The last 3 minutes were spent working out how we were going to concede a penalty or a drop goal but, to Leicester's credit, they went for the 4th try and their bonus point rather than take one away from us.

So we left Welford Road with a sense of a job pretty well done; if anyone had said we'd have taken a losing bonus point after the Irish game then I'd have called the men in white coats for them. But we stood up, were counted and got some deserved reward.

Just the 3 yellow cards (Vaikona, Kay and Rowntree), the first being on 33 minutes for those interested! The final word and the most succinct summing up comes from Dimes' though, courtesy of SportingLife.com :

Diamond was delighted with the spirit shown by his players that earned them a bonus point when Tevita Vaikona crossed in the dying minutes.
Diamond said: "We can be proud of the lads. We could have capitulated when they got two tries in the first half, but we steadied things. If you don't win away from home you have to get a bonus point and we definitely did enough to get a point."