For all that Saracens’ swashbuckling style, led by the irrepressible Alex Goode, caught the eye in a record-breaking fifth consecutive bonus point win, it is Todd Blackadder’s post-match revelation – that the sum total of Bath’s ambitions was a losing bonus point – which resonates most.
Blackadder made 13 changes to his side, resting his two England squad members and a raft of senior players at a ground where Bath are accustomed to heavy defeats. “We are creating more depth, we are freshening people up and we are learning about ourselves,” he said. “Even though we didn’t get what we were after, all we were really after was chasing a bonus point today.”
It must be said that Bath rallied to trail by just six points at half-time and Blackadder was adamant that “you don’t prepare to lose”, but his admission is nonetheless startling. Blackadder’s argument is that Bath host Exeter on Friday, then have two Champions Cup matches and after an injury-hit campaign last season he saw the chance to expose his squad players to the white heat of battle. “I absolutely stand by it,” he added.
“We’re trying to break the habit of breaking people all the time. I’d rather bring these young guys to play against the best so that they know what the benchmark is. Otherwise we’ll just end up playing our best team every single week and we’ll end up breaking guys. I just don’t think that’s the way forwards.”
The counterpoint is that Bath came into the match fourth in the table and are a club with an illustrious history but at a time when a 28-year-old England prop has just retired from international duty, Blackadder’s argument is at the very least timely, all the more so with the Rugby Football Union, in association with Premiership Rugby and the Rugby Players’ Association, soon to announce the new domestic structure.
He denied it was anything to do with England’s training camp in Bristol, which ran from last Sunday to Tuesday, but left Joe Cokanasiga and Zach Mercer out of the squad completely. Meanwhile, there were nine Saracens players away with England and eight of them started, causing their chairman, Nigel Wray, to lament in his programme notes a “difficult week” in which his club had been “penalised”.
Perhaps it is no coincidence then that Goode, by a distance the star turn, is England’s forgotten man. Eddie Jones clearly sees something he does not like but when he is performing with this type of spidery elusiveness he is a joy to behold. “It says a lot about his hunger to play at the highest level,” said the Saracens director of rugby, Mark McCall. “He still wants to play for England and he works incredibly hard for it.”
After eight here, Saracens have now scored 28 tries so far this season and they are the first ever side to start a campaign with five straight bonus point wins. If there was a downside it was a nasty-looking facial injury to Brad Barritt, but Liam Williams finished the match with his second hat-trick of the season and Goode was majestic, breaking Bath’s line at will. It seems staggering he has not played for England since November 2016.
After an opening Rhys Priestland penalty, Williams finished off a lovely move from left to right before Goode ran a superb line to take Alex Lozowski’s fizzing pass for the second try. Priestland added another penalty but Jamie George was barged over from the back of a driving lineout and Saracens were threatening to run riot.
The procession did not materialise as Chris Cook picked off Richard Wigglesworth’s pass for an interception try before Nick Tompkins dummied over for Saracens’ bonus-point score. Tom Homer was on hand for another Bath try before the break – for all that the hosts impressed in attack this was not their best defensive performance by a stretch – but Williams had his second and third soon after the interval, Goode making yet another fine break and offload for the second of those.
Bath stayed in the hunt with another intercept, this time from Homer, but Sean Maitland then got in on the act on the left for Saracens’ seventh score and the replacement hooker, Christopher Tolofua, added the eighth from another driving lineout.