Sarries know Glaws will be better next time
Dejected Glaws
By Cherry Picker
April 24 2011
Gloucester’s hectic schedule caught up with them as they slumped to a heavy defeat at second top Saracens. But barring last-ditch disasters, they will be back to face the same opposition in the Premiership play-offs, and even Sarries admit that will be a totally different ball-game.
After three hard games in eight days, the consolation for Glaws is that they now have two weeks off before facing Sale Sharks in their regular season finale at Kingsholm on May 7, and not surprisingly coach Bryan Redpath has set a five-point win as the target.
Sarries are now a point behind leaders Leicester after their ninth win on the bounce, but their director of rugby Mark McCall admitted: “If we do play Gloucester in the semi, we know a different team will turn up, not a side affected by playing three games in eight days.”
Hopefully he’s right, because the one that lost this game not surprisingly looked jaded and tired.
Redpath told the BBC: "We did not play well and Saracens deserved their win. We may well have run out of steam, given what we've had to handle in the past eight days. But we are definitely better than that performance.
"Now we need to achieve a five-point victory over Sale in two weeks to guarantee that we're back at Saracens in the semi-final.
"We never claimed to be the best team in England - we are still a notch down from the very best. But it's about learning and developing. And the players have not had a week off since August 14."
Glaws probably aren’t the best team in England, but after a season that occasionally threatened to end in tears, they have become one of them and once you get into the one-off situation of the playoffs, anything can happen.
The best team doesn’t ALWAYS win.
Sarries were always the better side this time, though, South Africans Schalk Brits and Ernst Joubert scoring first-half tries, with Matthew Stevens and David Strettle crossing in the second half.
James Simpson-Daniel and Henry Trinder scored the Glaws tries, Ryan Mills converting the latter.
So there’s a chance for Glaws to rest some tired and battered limbs now as they prepare for the Sale challenge on May 7, and a week and a day later they’ll hopefully show Sarries how good they REALLY can be.