Saracens were hit by a flu bug before the match but it was Northampton who were left feeling sick. The champions, and the team that led the Premiership throughout the season, will not be at Twickenham on Saturday after losing a battle of strength and wits to opponents who made the play-offs on points difference.
Saracens know the feeling having topped the table in the previous two seasons only to miss out on the title after losing to Northampton each time. Already without the injured Ben Foden and George North, the Saints lost three players in a bruising first half, including two full-backs. The tone was set in the buildup to the visitors’ first try when Billy Vunipola, making his presence felt at the breakdown, accidentally struck Ahsee Tuala in the shoulder and he was on the floor when David Strettle and Duncan Taylor chased a kick and took advantage of the lack of a sweeper.
Saracens are a chameleon of a side, not wedded to one style or colour, but here they were the men in black, casting the champions into the night. Their foundation was laid by a powerful, rampaging back row: Vunipola, known for his carrying, was conspicuous for what he did when not in possession, all muscle and sinew at the breakdown; Maro Itoje, a newcomer to the England squad, left an early impression on Courtney Lawes by felling the second-row, a match-defining moment, and despite his inexperience was one of his side’s most vocal players; and there was Jacques Burger, the demolition man.
He was a big hit throughout, one thumping challenge ending Lee Dickson’s afternoon, and he acted as his side’s enforcer: he confronted Dickson at the end of the first half under the misapprehension that the scrum-half had thrown the ball at the Saracens captain Alistair Hargreaves, who was lying at the bottom of a ruck, and he bearded Dylan Hartley after the hooker had confronted his opposite number, Jamie George. So driven was Burger that he seemed oblivious to pain, his challenges as crunching at the end as they were at the beginning.
Northampton are known for their physicality, to use the jargon of the time, but despite the strenuous efforts of Tom Wood, Calum Clark and Hartley, they were skittles to the visitors’ bowling pin. Samu Manoa, in his final appearance for the Saints before joining Toulon, was lost in battle, Lawes spent the rest of the afternoon picking up his dignity after Itoje’s impact and behind the scrum, Brad Barritt and Duncan Taylor controlled the midfield. Home they may have been, but the champions were absentee landlords.
“It was a massively physical performance and it had to be,” Burger said. “We knew we had to match their power and we did more than that: we put in one hell of a shift. Northampton had got the better of us a couple of times this season and they are a good side. Whenever there was a collision, we were there.”
Northampton used their driving maul to get back into the match after Strettle’s try, but they spent a lot of time in their own half after choosing not to respond to Saracens’ kicking in kind, keeping the ball in hand and running into trouble. “It comes down to small margins at this level and we attacked from deep rather than kicking and making them turn,” Jim Mallinder, Northampton’s director of rugby, said. “Everyone decides how they want to play and Saracens have gone down their route: to become champions, you have to be able to overcome all styles.”
Mallinder’s opposite number, Mark McCall, was unable to use all his replacements because of the flu bug that struck 10 of his players in the days before the match and, in the case of Barritt, on the morning of it. “It tells you the sort of group we have,” he said. “The players were hunting people down, getting off the floor to make tackle after tackle. The intensity was unbelievable and it was a titanic semi-final.” A hot bath awaits at Twickenham.
Northampton Tuala (Wilson, 3; Stephenson, h-t); K Pisi, G Pisi, Burrell, Elliott; Myler, Dickson (Fotuali’i, 50); Corbisiero (A Waller, 32), Hartley (capt; Haywood, 68), Ma’afu (Denman, 54), Lawes, Day (Fisher, 70), Wood, Clark (Dickinson, 72), Manoa.
Tries Penalty try, Wood. Con Myler. Pens Myler 4.
Saracens Goode; Strettle (Ashton, 68), Taylor, Barritt, Wyles; Farrell, Wigglesworth; M Vunipola, George, Du Plessis (Figallo, 59), Kruis, Hargreaves (capt; Hamilton, 62), Itoje (Wray, 65), Burger, B Vunipola.
Tries Strettle, George. Cons Farrell 2. Pens Farrell 5.
Sinbin M Vunipola 12.
Referee G Garner. Attendance 13,362.
