By Jonjo
February 25 2006

This week's preview starts with a message - I'll just take a moment to say "Goodbye" to all the Saracens fans: thanks for your company, and we look forward to seeing you back at Vicarage Road when we're winning again. OK, those of us still reading this must be true Supporters or closet Masochists (S & M for short). Now is the time to roll up our sleeves, warm up our tonsils and get together to make a hell of a lot of noise for the team. Going quiet on them is not an option if we want to stay in the Premiership. Bristol have a tough run in and must regard winning this game as critical - and we're in exactly the same situation.

Bristol made a bright start to the year and scalped us on our visit, then lost their way with a series of poor results, but they go into Sunday's game on the back of a battling 9 - 9 draw against Pests at the Memorial stadium. Our pattern has some similarity, but we are trying to recover from a wipe-out at Northampton and have yet to show signs of turning the ship around.

It is not only the team that was wiped out, the supporters had to endure a humiliating thrashing. It was terrible viewing on Sky and must have been worse in person, especially having to listen to that bl**dy song. Some compensation if you left early, I guess you got out of the car park in less than an hour!

Looking at the team sheet, we are missing a sprinkling of key players: Fullarton from the line out, Brucie from the back row and Thomas from the centres. I think that leaves us rather too short of lineout options - Ches and Vyvs basically - and lacking creativity in the centres. On the positive side, we have Vyvs back from a week off, Cobus is fit to start and we have Taine and Cec at flanker. For me a big problem at Saints was letting them boss the breakdown, and I don't think Taine will allow that.

So who to watch? From Brissle, I'll be keeping a close eye on Shaun Perry, who is being spoken of as a potential England scrum half although only in his 1st season in the Premiership, Matt Salter, who is a real workhorse No 6, and Lee Robinson, who has embarrassed some big names with his ability to carry the ball through heavy midfield traffic. For Sarries, I want to see a big, positive game from Vyvs, back in his preferred position. I could wish we didn't have Mr Davey in charge: I'd like Vyvs to concentrate on his game and the team, and not worry (or argue) about the ref's decisions. Secondly, I want to see us dominating at the breakdown, and I think we have the men to do it. Seymour will get there first and Randell will do the needful. Finally, Del had a pretty good game in defence last week: time to turn on the afterburners and blow the doors off Brissle's plans for a celebration on the coach back home.

Last words: let's give the boys a massive cheer when they come out, and lets keep it going for 80 minutes. We, the supporters, have to perform as well.

Teams:
Saracens
Mark Bartholomeusz, Dan Scarbrough, Kevin Sorrell, Dan Harris, Richard Haughton, Glen Jackson, Kyran Bracken, Nick Lloyd, Shane Byrne, Cobus Visagie, Simon Raiwalui, Kris Chesney, Taine Randell, David Seymour, Hugh Vyvyan
Replacements:
Andy Kyriacou, Ben Broster, Ben Russell, Steffon Armitage, Mosese Rauluni, Ben Johnston, Tevita Vaikona

Bristol
Vaughan Going, Lee Robinson, Rob Higgitt, Sam Cox, Marko Stanojevic, Jason Strange, Shaun Perry, Dave Hilton, Mark Regan, Darren Crompton, Nathan Budgett, Gareth Llewellyn, Matt Salter (capt), Craig Short, Dan Ward-Smith
Replacements:
Alex Clarke, Saul Nelson, Mariano Sambucetti, Geraint Lewis, Greg Nicholls, Tommy Hayes, Bernardo Stortoni