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A year ago this weekend, Saracens slumped to their seventh successive defeat, a run so out of kilter with the norm it was like going back in time to find Henry VIII supping with the Pope. The Premiership champions arrived here nursing a 21-match unbeaten record stretching back to April Fool’s Day having put 51 points on the Blues six days before and won with a degree of comfort, doing no more than they had to on the wettest of afternoons.
The Blues fought for 80 minutes rather than the 40 they had at Allianz Park, but Saracens know how to grind out victories. Trailing at half-time, as they had the previous weekend, they absorbed pressure, scored points on their few visits to their opponents’ 22 and, tellingly, survived the loss of the second row Will Skelton to the sin-bin after 62 minutes.
Sarries were then 16-14 ahead and the Blues scented an upset, twice declining a kickable penalty and opting for a scrum. They generated a shove on the first one, but in his excitement their replacement tight-head prop, Dillon Lewis, lost his binding and was penalised. Lewis enjoyed a prominent November for Wales but here he found Mako Vunipola awkward to grapple with.
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Saracens used a series of scrums to eat up Skelton’s time off the field, resets and penalties reducing the pace of the game to a crawl. The Blues’ head coach, John Mulvihill, was left marvelling at the capacity of the visitors to manoeuvre themselves out of a corner while at the same time taking aim at the referee, Jérôme Garcès.
“We were penalised for pushing too hard in one scrum,” he said. “It’s what you are supposed to do.” The Blues lost the penalty count 17-9, blown at the breakdown as well as the scrum, felt Sean Maitland should have joined Skelton in the sin-bin after 65 minutes for taking out Garyn Smith in the air and were convinced that the match-deciding try, scored by Jamie George four minutes from time, should not have been awarded because Olly Robinson had prevented the grounding.
They had some reason to feel aggrieved, although Blaine Scully avoided a yellow card in the first half when he took out Alex Lewington in the air, but Saracens have honed an ability over the years to seize the moment. At the point they looked most vulnerable with Skelton in the sin-bin, they showed why they are probably the leading club in Europe.
Owen Farrell was near his own line, chased by three defenders. At the point they looked to collar him, he flicked a pass out of the back of his hand to Alex Goode. The full-back, as surprised to receive the ball as his opponents, cleared it 60 metres down field and the Blues barely mustered another attack.
“Players of that quality produce such stuff,” said Mulvihill, while Farrell cursed what he felt was his side’s overly nice approach in the first half when a 10-point lead sagged into a one-point deficit.
Sarries scored their first try after eight minutes, Maitland eluding Dan Fish too easily, before Farrell kicked the first of four penalties. The Blues hit back on their first visit to their opponents’ 22, Ray Lee-Lo scoring from a scrum, but Saracens’ control was reflected by another Farrell kick before Gareth Anscombe’s left-foot chip was fielded by Smith as Maitland watched. Fish supported his wing on the inside and evaded Goode’s challenge.
Robinson replaced Samu Manoa at the interval, a forward who barely resembled the one who dominated defences in his Northampton days, Popeye on a spinach-free diet, but they continued to struggle at the breakdown where Ben Earl, playing in front of the England forwards coach Steve Borthwick, excelled.
Sarries regained the lead through Farrell’s boot after 54 minutes. Lewis’s problems up front gave the visitors a cushion seven minutes from time before George’s contested late try denied the Blues a bonus point that would have been no use to them.
“Discontented” was how Saracens’ director of rugby, Mark McCall, described the mood in the club as the long unbeaten run continued. “There is more in us than we are serving up.”