Saracens vs. Leeds Carnegie – Match Preview
Supreme Offloaders?
By saracens4life
February 15 2011
There has been an air of confidence on the message board this week: fresh from high-scoring drubbings of the Scarlets and Sale in the LV Cup and more notably a hugely impressive and convincing win over our good friends Northampton at Franklins Gardens, many will have looked at this weekend, a home fixture against the side propping up the rest of the Premiership, and predicted an easy bonus-point victory.
Leeds though, under the passionate and committed stewardship of ex-Leicester duo Andy Key and Neil Back, are made of sterner stuff than that, and will fight for every inch at Vicarage Road on Sunday. I am positive that Mark McCall, Andy Farrell and the rest of the coaches will show no sign of complacency in their selection this weekend, and likewise with the players who do take the field.
I can’t profess a huge amount of knowledge about the intricacies of the Yorkshire-based club, but they will bring a combative presence to the breakdown and a well-drilled lineout with Marco Wentzel at the helm. Their attacking game though, as a quick glance at the Premiership statistics will bear witness to, has not borne much fruition, with Carnegie in 11th position in terms of clean breaks and metres gained, with only Newcastle below them in each respect. Where they may provide a threat to the recently exceptional Sarries’ defence is through their offloading game: sitting at 3rd in the offloading chart and with some big back-five runners, such as Daniel Browne and Hendre Fourie, they will probably look to target Sarries through the middle, around the fringes of the breakdown. Furthermore, they have conceded the 3rd fewest number of turnovers.
“Ah”, I hear the masses cry out, “if Leeds can be that potent through the narrow channels, and only Northampton have kicked away less ball from hand, how can they be bottom of the try-scoring table, with just 13?.” The answer, I would hazard to say, lies in their backline. Ceiron Thomas is not the most free-flowing fly-half in English rugby – he does his basics well, but he does not inject much pace into an already quite stagnant three-quarter line, with the likes of Luther Burrell, Scott Barrow and Henry Fa’afili all strong in contact but quite one-dimensional. Sarries have had plenty of practice against one-dimensional centre pairings, having played a full 80 minutes against the Saints’ Downey-Clarke axis. This is only a guess, as I haven’t watched Leeds a lot this season, but I would suspect most of their best attacking comes from the lively scrum-half Scott Mathie rather than the cumbersome Thomas.
Leeds do like to spend time with the ball though, something made easy by their usually all-conquering lineout, which will challenge Sarries’ supply of ball and may call for the return, if fit, of captain and lineout technician Steve Borthwick. The Sarries defence will need to keep focus and surpass the physicality of the Leeds back-five if the Men in Black’s dangerous open-field runners are going to be given space. One interesting match-up will be the scrum, where Sarries performed admirably, and even dominated, a mighty Saints front row. For this reason I would expect the front row of the rapidly-improving Rhys Gill, livewire Schalk Brits and experienced Italian Carlos Nieto to be retained. Behind them, as mentioned above, Steve Borthwick may make a return if he has recovered from his shoulder injury; Borthwick, as well as an excellent lineout leader, is top of the Sarries tackle count, so his work rate will come in useful when countering the Leeds runners. I think we may see Hayden Smith, so impressive last week, get a well-earned rest this week, with the ubiquitous Mouritz Botha alongside either Borthwick or 34-year-old Hugh Vyvyan, who would move level with Simon Shaw in terms of Premiership appearances, with 232.
In the back row, in the long-term absence of Jacques Burger due to a knee injury, I expect Andy Saull to move into the starting team alongside South African Justin Melck and skipper Ernst Joubert, with the up-and-coming Jackson Wray looking to provide pace and dynamism off the bench. The prospect of Saull, Joubert and Brits reforming their attacking trio is a mouth-watering one, and it is through such players that Sarries will look to inject the pace in attack required to break down a stubborn Leeds defence. The battle of the breakdown will largely depend on whether Hendre Fourie is released by England; if so, the contest between him and Saull, the incumbent and the emerging, will be intriguing.
I would like to see Neil de Kock stay at scrum-half as his service tends to be quicker than that of Richard Wigglesworth, whose tactical kicking game is often useful in the last 20 minutes. Owen Farrell will be at fly-half again, after a mature performance at Franklins Gardens last week; we all hope that that he is refereed more competently this week than he was by Andrew Small. It was not just the distribution and game management of Farrell that caught the eye last week but his huge commitment in defence, where he punches well above his weight and will scupper opposition’s plans to run through him all day.
Brad Barritt is sure to stay at 12, but the choice between Tagicakibau and Penney at 13 is an interesting one. Given the direct running of the Leeds centres, a tactic which Northampton used to good effect against Penney, who missed tackles leading up to both tries. The argument for Rodd is that he still needs time to readjust himself to Sarries’ defensive patterns; the argument for Tagi is that he needs game time after injury and he will probably shore up the defence in the short-term.
In the back three, I am sure Wyles, ever a threat on Saturday, and Goode, who is showing more and more glimpses that he is getting back to his magical best, will retain their places, while Strettle, even if fit, may be given a week off. He could be replaced by any of James Short, Noah Cato or Tagicakibau.
Overall, a tough physical battle is in prospect, but if Sarries can show the same intensity levels as last week, they will overcome the hurdle of the Leeds pack, and if we can put pace on the ball and release runners such as Brits, Saull and Wyles, we could well run Carnegie ragged. I predict a pretty comfortable Sarries win. Bonus point? Not sure, could come down to the weather on Sunday.
Good luck and safe travels to any making the trip down from Yorkshire, I’m sure you will be made welcome.
I'll now try to get this piece displaying more prominently.
Don't hold your breath - as Private Eye used to say "P|ssed old hack baffled by modern technology"
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2011:02:23:12:16:11 by TonyTaff.
, given that we're up against Leceister, where points will not be forthcoming.Quote:usually all-conquering lineout
Good to see the usually word there - our boys won't let them near it.
