It was apt that Chris Wyles signed off his Saracens career with two tries after another final in which the team that had finished first came second. Exeter lacked the wiles of their opponents, sticking to the possession formula that has brought them so much reward this season without taking ownership of the game after the opening 10 minutes.
Sarries did not touch the ball in that time, apart from Sean Maitland dropping Nic White’s box-kick, but it was the period when the match was won and lost. As Exeter took play through phase after phase, Saracens met them head-on, protecting the gainline by fanning out and rarely competing for possession at the breakdown to allow them to rush up.
Exeter were being pushed backwards but kept coming, not tweaking their approach beyond the odd off-load. They had failed to beat Leinster in two attempts in the European Champions Cup in December and it is not so much that they lack a plan B but that their A game needs more variation, a kick here or there or a long pass to bring Henry Slade in from the cold.
They were predictable while Saracens had Alex Goode. The England head coach, Eddie Jones, was among the spectators, but he would not have been scrutinising a full-back he jettisoned two years ago. It was, though, Goode who, following Exeter’s early dominance, created the opening try after 13 minutes when chasing Owen Farrell’s chip and, with a mixture of determination and luck, beating four defenders to the ball. Saracens were able to run at a defence scrambling into position and – after moving the ball wide – they used their forwards to rumble to the line for Billy Vunipola to claim his first try of a season badly disrupted by injury.
It was their first attack and the next one produced their second try with Goode again at its core.
He appeared at second receiver outside Farrell and after taking the ball ran an outside arc that prevented the defence from fanning out wide. He timed his pass to Alex Lozowski and Wyles was left with a run-in on the left wing. The move was almost repeated in the final two minutes when Nathan Earle, Wyles’s replacement, completed the scoring and it was the ability of Saracens to work players into space rather than seek contact that set them apart.
They did have one jittery period at the end of the third quarter when Exeter, having made a raft of changes, including their entire front row, stiffened up their scrum and used a penalty won up front to drive a line-out. When it was collapsed by Schalk Brits close to the Saracens line, the hooker, making his final appearance for the club at the age of 37, was sent to the sin-bin.
Exeter – 19-3 down at that stage after Wyles’s second try six minutes into the second period – sensed the turning of the tide.
Dave Ewers was held up over the line and from the resulting scrum, Gareth Steenson used the threat of Olly Woodburn outside him to dummy his way over, and the Chiefs’ supporters found their voice. The champions had won the final 10 matches of the season in all competitions while Sarries had overcome their worst run this decade when they lost seven consecutive matches in November and December.
Saracens kept true to themselves in adversity and here, nine points ahead but with Brits having another seven minutes in the sin-bin, their season was on the line. The last year they had failed to win a trophy was 2014 and nothing was going to deflect them. Having 14 players was barely a disadvantage because Mako Vunipola, again, was playing with the force of two in his 32nd appearance of the season having started all three Lions Tests in New Zealand.
Vunipola carried the ball for 38 metres, more than any other forward on a hot, humid afternoon, and he made 18 tackles while helping establish his side’s early superiority up front where he won two penalties out of Tomas Francis, a tight-head not often found in reverse gear. He was given the last five minutes off and had just enough strength to trudge off the field to a standing ovation.
It was a match between two teams renowned for their collective strength, but a difference was the influence exerted by some of their noted individuals, led by Mako Vunipola. Farrell, until he developed cramp, was excellent in defence, along with his captain Brad Barritt, Maro Itoje was at his marauding best and Jackson Wray timed his interventions at the breakdown.
And there was Goode, the player Exeter could have done with. His England career is said to have fizzled out because of a lack of pace, but his speed of thought was such here that he was able to exploit a defence that was too often narrow. He would fix an opponent and manoeuvre a team-mate into space where the Chiefs tended to run at bodies.
Saracens used to be regarded as roundheads. They have not gone all cavalier, but they have their moments, wily enough to regain the crown they lost in Exeter last year and they have the summer to figure out how to topple Leinster in Europe.
Saracens beat Exeter 27-10 to win Premiership final – as it happened