Saracens have returned to winning form in the Champions Cup, as they enjoyed the spoils of a 13-try thriller at the Stone X. After starting slowly against Connacht, Owen Farrell led his side back into the lead, before Saracens ran away with proceedings and an eventual 55-29 win.
After suffering a defeat in their opening Champions Cup fixture to the Bulls, expectations were high for a Saracens win on home turf. The three-time Champions Cup winners hosted plucky Irish province Connacht at the Stone X, who proved to be tough challengers on their visit to North London.
After an opening five minutes of back and forth pressure, it was Saracens who crossed over for the first try of the match. Juan Martin Gonzalez was in inspired form throughout the matches’ early goings, as he stole a line-out, and contributed Saracens’ first score of the afternoon. The Argentine ran on to Owen Farrell’s grubber kick, and collected the ball well. The back-row then muscled his way through three Connacht tackle attempts, to wrap up a strong solo effort from the 22m line. Farrell missed his opening shot at the sticks, keeping the deficit at five-nil.
Speaking after the match, Gonzalez played down his try scoring efforts, as he tried to give the try to his former London Irish teammate calling in support. The former Exile added how he is still in contact with his old teammates, after London Irish followed at the end of the 2022/23 Premiership season.
“It was weird, because I have Lucio (Cinti) next to me, and I want to pass him (the ball). I couldn’t pass to him and I scored, I said ‘sorry my friend’. Like, I couldn’t feel (enjoy) the feeling of the try, because I want to pass the ball to Lucio. Because I wanted him to score.”
“Here we have two London Irish, that is good, because they helped me to meet everyone here. So that was good. And yeah, of course we are in touch with them. I think when you play in a club and you go to another then you’re always going to have good relationship with the old club. So yeah, of course I’m in touch and they’re really good.”
Connacht were soon kicked into gear, and took the charge at the set-piece. The Irish province won a scrum penalty against the put-in, and sent the following penalty out to the corner. The 14th minute maul was well collected, yet spilled in-field by the Saracens pack. The Connacht backs joined the fray, with Bundee Aki reinforcing the driving maul. The centre pushed his teammates over the try-line, and grounded the ball to score. Jack Carty made no mistake from the tee, and handed Connacht a two-point lead.
This points scoring swung once again, with Owen Farrell slotting a penalty just one minute after the re-start. Connacht’s Shayne Bolton was penalised for going too high in a maul, with the Sarries fly half edging his side back in front. This Saracens lead was short lived, as the yo-yoing momentum of this match took another swing. After five minutes of relentless Connacht pressure, scrum half Coalin Blade spotted a gap in the black and red wall. The halfback sniped from close range, with the TMO confirming his try-scoring efforts at 24 minutes. Carty kept his kicking accurate off the tee, and extended the lead to 8-14.
Owen Farrell found himself in the middle of a tussle, and some post-collision push-and-shove saw him tackle a player to the deck with play stopped. He then shoved the Connacht man for good measure, and was lucky to avoid the sin bin. Carty took advantage of the penalty for three additional Connacht points.
The last 10 minutes of the first half was all in favour of Saracens. The hosts took control up-front, and showcased their strength from the set-piece. Jamie George was over for two tries ahead of the break, as the men in black battered their way over the Connacht try line with efficient rolling mauls. The Irish side could not contain the Saracens’ pack, with the England hooker grounding for tries on the 32nd and 40th minutes. An Owen Farrell penalty in between George’s brace established a strong 21-17 lead, with the hosts leaving the pitch with their tails up, having completed the first half comeback ahead of the break.
Saracens started the second match full of fire, and were over for their fourth try after just two minutes. A searching run from Sean Maitland split through the defence, before the wing found Aled Davies in support to gain additional metres. The scrum half was brought down, yet quick ball kept the ball alive, and Goode’s chip into the back-field fell nicely for Olly Hartley to score. The former England captain found his shooting boots in the changing rooms, as Farrell slotted the following conversion.
Connacht back-row Cian Pendergast was sent to the sin bin, as he went straight off his feet at the breakdown. Saracens looked to be in a dangerous position, and the flanker halted all of the attacking flow. Farrell’s penalty extended the lead, before the North Londoners hit top gear with two tries in two minutes. Both of Sarries’ flying wingers ignited their afterburners, as Sean Maitland and Lucio Cinti crossed over for tries just one minute apart. Farrell was at the centre of Maitland’s score, as he shipped a wide miss pass out to the left touchline for the run in.
Cinti presented a great burst of pace along the right wing, and glided past his opposite man on his way through to the whitewash. On an inconsistent day of kicking, Farrell nailed the effort from out wide to convert Maitland’s try, but failed to replicate the efforts from the opposite wing.
Connacht would not lie down for the form-finding Saracens, and battled their way back for a try just before the hour mark. The move began with Aki battling his way through contact, and handing a skilful ‘out the back’ offload to Bolton. The wing showed the strength of an NFL tight-end and the balance of a ballerina to avoid touch, and sent his own offload back in field to JJ Hanrahan. The replacement fly half forced his way through the Saracens defence, with a strong fend on a black shirt to score (43-24).
Despite this surge in momentum, Saracens neutralised Connacht’s offensive once more, and were back down to lift the roof of a rather confident Stone X crowd. In a re-peat of his previous score, Hartley followed the chip into the in-goal area, with the plaudits now going to Nick Tompkins’ subtlety from the boot. This 63rd minute score was converted by Farrell, who brought up the half-century of points.
The end-to-end basketball style scoring continued, with Connacht muscling their way over for another try from close range. Replacement front-rower Joe Joyce got his name on the score-sheet, as he tucked his head and drove after the initial rolling maul effort was halted. The scoring pendulum swung back in favour of Saracens, with replacement hooker Theo Dan emulating Jamie George’s try-scoring antics at the back of the maul. The young front rower grounded a 70th minute score, with the match all but out of sight for the Irish visitors.
After returning from his sin-bin, Pendergast scored a consolation try for the visitors in the final play of the game. With the clock long in the red, Saracens failed to clear their lines, and spilled the ball for a JJ Hanrahan interception. The fly half found the flanker in support, to run in the closing score of the match.
Saracens Director of Rugby Mark McCall was delighted by the performance of Olly Hartley. The young centre shone with his brace of tries, and faced up to the challenge of Bundee Aki in the midfield.
“Really good for Olly, because it wasn’t just (the tries), they were the icing on the cake. But I thought he defended really strongly. He attacked really well. To jump into your first European cup, there was quite a bit of buzz for him. And you’re against Bundee Aki, you sometimes see if someone’s ready or not. And he showed us all and he was ready to come off the bench a couple of weeks ago against Quinn’s after a couple of minutes when Alex Lozowski got injured and similarly played really, really strong game. So it’s, you know, two games in a row that he’s been really good.”
Despite the hard-fought result, Connacht Head Coach Pete Wilkins was delighted to see his impact players live up to their tags. Wilkins praised the efforts of JJ Hanrahan’s replacement involvement, and also his replacement front row who he introduced early in the second half.
“I think JJ his impact was really positive, you know, that I think the benefit of having himself and Jack gives us that chance to change gears as a leader, one of them coming off the bench. And, you know, the phase attack flowed nicely in that passage, when JJ first came on, we got the trial as a reward. And it was at a stage of the game where we had to go for it. So you know, I think whichever 10 comes off the bench for us, if you’re in that sort of situation, you’ve got got licensed to do that. And I thought he did a good job.”
“Well, I think you know, recognizing the physicality and intensity that you need to compete with, against a team like Saracen particularly away from home, we knew we’d have to make some changes in those forwards fairly early.
“You know, we’ve got got to pretty experienced props there. In Denis Buckey and Finlay Bealham is an established international. So whether that’s just energy around the park and the quality they bring or particularly around the scrum, you know, we wanted that impact early and I thought they delivered that to be fair.”
SARACENS: 55
TRIES: 8 (Gonzalez 7′, George 32′, 40′, Hartley 42′, 64′ Maitland 55′, Cinti 56′, Dan 70′)
CONVERSIONS 3 (Farrell 42′, 55′, 64′)
PENALTIES 3 (Farrell 19′, 38′, 51′)
DROP GOALS: 0
YELLOW CARDS: 1 (Itoje 59′)
RED CARDS: 0
15. Alex Goode 14. Lucio Cinti 13. Nick Tompkins 12. Olly Hartley 11. Sean Maitland 10. Owen Farrell 9. Aled Davies 1. Mako Vunipola 2. Jamie George 3. Alec Clarey 4. Maro Itoje 5. Theo McFarland 6. Juan Martin Gonzalez 7. Andy Christie 8. Billy Vunipola
16. Theo Dan 17. Tom West 18. Logovi’i Mulipola 19. Hugh Tizard 20. Toby Knight 21. Ivan Van Zyl 22. Tom Parton 23. Alex Lewington
CONNACHT: 36
TRIES: 5 (Aki 13′, Blade 24′, Hanrahan 62′, Joyce 67′, Pendergast 80′)
CONVERSIONS: 3 (Carty 13′, 24′, Hanrahan 62′, 80′)
PENALTIES: 1 (Carty 28′)
DROP GOALS: 0
YELLOW CARDS 1 (Pendergast 51′)
RED CARDS: 0
15. John Porch 14. Byron Ralston 13. Tom Farrell 12. Bundee Aki 11. Shayne Bolton 10. Jack Carty 9. Coalin Blade 1. Jordan Duggan 2. Dave Hefferman 3. Jack Aungier 4. Darragh Murray 5. Gavin Thornberry 6. Cian Pendergast 7. Conor Oliver 8. Paul Boyle
16. Dylan Tierney-Martin 17. Denis Buckley 18. Finlay Bealham 19. Joe Joyce 20. Jarrard Butler 21. Michael McDonald 22. JJ Hanrahan 23. Diarmuid Kilgallen