There is always more to the best rugby teams than a list of big names. Saracens are a good example, particularly on huge European occasions such as this. Those scanning the team sheet for the Champions Cup final against Leinster and seeing only Owen Farrell, Maro Itoje, the Vunipolas, Liam Williams and Jamie George are overlooking their source of greatest strength.
Two players particularly sum up what Sarries are about, beyond their fondness for box-kicking and salary cap small print. Neither Alex Goode nor Jackson Wray are British & Irish Lions or frontrunners for England’s World Cup squad but Sarries would not swap either of them. Goode, tellingly, is on the five-man shortlist for the European Player of the Year award and is about to feature in his fourth Champions Cup final. Wray has also been associated with the club for a decade, is chasing his third winner’s medal and was a key semi-final contributor. Between them, the two one-club men have racked up almost 500 senior appearances.
Their respective tales symbolise the club’s decade-long climb to the upper branches of the European tree. Both were initially footballers – a midfielder and a goalkeeper respectively – from unfashionable rugby nurseries. Goode grew up in Cambridgeshire and Wray in Essex; the roll call of prominent rugby players in the modern era (Barking’s Jason Leonard aside) from those two counties is not extensive.
Goode, admittedly, had a fine all-round sporting pedigree – his aunt, Jo, was an Olympic badminton medallist – but until his mother tired of driving him from Cambridge to Ipswich’s academy for training he was a decent round-ball prospect. “I loved it but mum, being a schoolteacher, didn’t really see the point of me travelling an hour there and back, falling asleep both ways, twice or three times a week. When she said she wasn’t taking me any more I didn’t really argue.” One of his great childhood memories, even so, remains a game between Cambridgeshire Schools and an Essex Schools side containing several West Ham academy hopefuls. “We had no superstars but just played unbelievably well and won 3-2. I remember thinking: ‘This isn’t a bad effort for Cambridge.’”
Wray was also a keen footballer until he was 14 and only played rugby because his teachers at King John school in Benfleet insisted he give it a go. “Where I grew up football was everything but my school basically said: ‘You’re not allowed to play football unless you play rugby.’ I was one of the taller kids so that meant I was chucked in there.” Remarkably he made his debut for Saracens barely four years after taking up the sport, driven on by his academy contemporaries Farrell, George and George Kruis.
“That probably shaped me,” says Wray. “I wouldn’t say I was ever the most natural player but I realised that to get to the top level would take a lot of work.”
And there, in the shape of the gifted Goode and the workhorse Wray, you have Saracens’ precious alchemy. United by the wolfpack ethos that has driven their club to 10 major finals in nine years, they also remain their own men. Goode possesses a marketing degree and is among the game’s more rounded individuals while Wray has a degree in psychology and has spent time working in the field of psychometric profiling. The back-rower reckons the latter has proved directly beneficial in terms of his own game. “My profile says I’m not too good at seeing when someone is feeling a certain way so I’ve tried to be more aware of that.”
The 30-year-old Goode is similarly interesting on the mind games all professional sportspeople must play. “Maybe my dad was an influence when he said: ‘I don’t think anyone successful in sport has come out of Cambridge in 20 years.’ But I was always a bit of a thinker as well. I always liked to analyse the best players in the world in all sports and understand why they were doing certain things. Perhaps that helps as well.”
Allied to the full-back’s outstanding spatial awareness, though, is a relentless competitiveness. Goode is invariably the man to beat in the club’s Fantasy Football league and hates losing on a rugby field even more.
As he ticks off his most enjoyable days in a Saracens jersey – the wins over Clermont Auvergne in 2014 and 2017 and the 2015 Premiership final against Bath (“The first half was almost perfection ... we were so physical and went after them”) – it is hard not to conclude Eddie Jones must have a seriously good squad if Goode and his extra “e” are surplus to requirements.
His England exile, though, has further intensified his bond with Saracens. As with Leinster, this is a club acutely conscious any side is only as good as its weakest link. “We’re very lucky that everyone in this team never wants to let anyone down and fights unbelievably hard. It’s been a massive squad effort all year.”
Wray also has his own extra spur of motivation as the only north-east-born player involved at St James’ Park. Admittedly he did not hang around in Sunderland long before moving south as a baby but his mother, Diane, still has plenty of relatives locally who have been requesting tickets to watch him on Saturday afternoon. “St James’ Park is only 20 minutes down the road from them so it’ll be nice to have some family members there. I don’t think they know loads about rugby. This one’s probably one of the biggest games and they probably won’t realise.”
No one involved with Saracens, though, needs telling how much this one matters. “This group of guys is massively motivated to keep improving,” Goode says. “We want to win as much as we can and really be a dominant force.” If that means disappointing Stuart Lancaster, his erstwhile England coach, then so be it – but collective success is what really counts for Goode.
“It is obviously great to be on the player of the year shortlist but I’d snap your hand off for a win for the boys this weekend. This is why you play rugby, to play against the best teams in what is the best club competition in the world in my eyes. If you’re not excited by that and playing at St James’ Park you’re probably in the wrong gig.”
