Saracens missed the chance to join Northampton at the top of the Premiership when Owen Williams secured two points for Leicester with the last kick of the game in an extraordinary finish in dreadful conditions. The fly-half and his opposite number, Charlie Hodgson, each scored seven penalties on a day when driving rain made running rugby all but impossible.
Saracens, who meet the champions, Northampton, in another Sunday lunchtime encounter next weekend, left Welford Road in a less than sunny mood. But for Stuart Lancaster there was some sort of silver lining among the many clouds. Dan Cole packed down in the Leicester front row for the first time in a Premiership match for nine months, the England tighthead having recovered from neck surgery. Cole survived 64 minutes and looked pretty much his old self.
Cole would have given a rueful smile from the bench when one of Saracens’ replacement props, Rhys Gill, was penalised for not driving straight at the final scrum. Williams stepped up to convert the kick in a hushed silence from 30 metres. The Welshman is certainly nerveless. Earlier Williams had landed one kick from the halfway line and another from four metres inside the Saracens half but missed the simplest of 17 kicks at goal between himself and Hodgson, from the 22.
No wonder the Leicester director of rugby, Richard Cockerill, was unsure whether to praise his fly-half or blame him for not winning the game. “I thought the game-management of our 9 and 10 was poor but Owen is mentally tough. If you had given me the draw before the game I would have taken it. The conditions meant there wasn’t much rugby out there but I was really pleased with the effort.
“Saracens may not have been happy with being penalised for that last penalty but the scrum is a bit of a lottery. Just before that Graham Kitchener was trapped at the bottom of a ruck but they were happy to take three points. Dan Cole had a tough day but he’s been out for nine months and he will get better.”
Williams, who kept an England fly-half, Freddie Burns, on the bench all afternoon, admitted: “That silence at the end sounded pretty loud. I had missed an easy kick earlier but you just have to keep your nerve and not think about how important the kick is.”
Neither side went close to scoring a try with Saracens’ two England wings, Chris Ashton and David Strettle, in such good form in drier conditions early this autumn, starved of the ball. Saracens seized the initiative through Hodgson’s two early kicks but lost it when their Argentinian centre Marcelo Bosch was sent to the sin-bin.
Bosch was judged to have tipped Blaine Scully on his head but it was a harsh decision as Strettle and the Leicester hooker Harry Thacker were also involved in the tackle. Either way the American wing Scully did not reappear after a painful 40 minutes in which he also suffered a clash of heads with Jacques Burger. Tommy Bell replaced Scully for his first taste of Premiership action but Scully’s loss is another cruel blow for Leicester who, besides Cole, have missed four other England forwards – Tom Youngs, Tom Croft, Geoff Parling and Ed Slater – this season.
Brad Thorn, the former All Black who captained the side, ensured the Leicester pack matched Saracens for physicality. He will be 40 in February but he did his level best to make up for the absence of those England forwards. And it was another veteran, Hodgson, who caught the eye. When the Saracens fly-half landed his third kick of the afternoon he reached 500 successful penalties in the Premiership. Hodgson’s tactical kicking was also immaculate. His England days may be long gone but he enjoyed a much more satisfying weekend than his club-mate and fellow No10 Owen Farrell at Twickenham.
Leicester Tait; Scully (Bell, h-t), Smith, Allen, Benjamin; Williams, Mele; Rizzo, Thacker, Cole (Balmain, 64), Thorn (capt), Kitchener, Gibson, Salvi, Crane. Pens Williams 7.
Saracens Goode; Ashton, Bosch (Taylor, 57), Wyles, Strettle; Hodgson, Wigglesworth; Barrington (Gill, 70), George, Figallo, Botha (Hamilton, 57), Hargreaves (capt), Brown, Burger (Fraser, 60), Wray.
Pens Hodgson 7. Sin-bin Bosch, 13.
Referee T Wigglesworth. Att 21,680.
