The last team to beat Saracens in the European Champions Cup, Clermont Auvergne, will meet them in the final next month. After the French club’s victory over Leinster in the semi‑final in Lyon on Sunday a local journalist became rather more lyrical than the Premiership and European champions are known to be. “Saracens, their surgical rugby, shadows and blood, charcoal and demons, await at the corner of Murrayfield where many ghosts prowl,” he wrote. “But is it not the best place for an exorcism?”
The final certainly promises to be exercising for Clermont, whose England wing David Strettle knows the key to his former club’s success. He was on the Saracens bench in the Saint-Étienne semi-final two years ago, coming on for the last seven minutes of the 13-9 defeat, and since then his former club have equalled Leinster’s record of 17 successive matches in the tournament without defeat.
Ten of the side who started for Saracens that day took the field in the semi-final against Munster last Saturday, twice as many as Clermont Auvergne had in their match against Leinster the following day. Continuity has been one of the factors behind the success of the men in black. Such departures as those of Strettle, to be followed to France in the summer by Chris Ashton, leaving before the end of their careers when they are still wanted, are rare and in each case frustration at the way their England career had stalled was a significant factor in the decision to move.
Saracens have lost only two matches since the beginning of last year when they have had a full squad, barring injuries, to select from. They have lost only two matches that Owen Farrell has started in the last 28 months: Harlequins last year and Clermont in the group stage of the 2014-15 European Cup. More remarkably, their only two Premiership defeats in the last four seasons when he has been in the starting lineup were Quins in January 2016 and Northampton in the 2014 final.
Farrell personifies Saracens in his deliberate, focused manner. He makes mistakes, as he did against Munster when botching two kicks out of hand, but he recovers quickly. If neither he nor his club sizzles with spontaneity, he is an arch-opportunist, watching, waiting and striking. Their surgical rugby stitches up and, as they headed to Barcelona for a bonding session, it was a case of the Boo Camp for the team that gather strength from being unloved by neutrals.
They are aiming to emulate Leinster and Toulon this decade in retaining the European Cup. Clermont, unusually for a French club, appear fixated on Europe more than the Top 14, resting players before the Leinster semi-final, and having lost narrowly to Toulon in the 2013 and 2015 finals. Their midfield is powered by the 36-year-old Aurélien Rougerie and they have controlling half-backs in Camille Lopez and Morgan Parra.
It may be a repeat of last year’s final between Saracens and Racing 92 in Lyon, when neither side took risks. Munster were undermined by their lack of (recent) experience at the highest level in European club rugby, first growing frustrated when their strategy had little impact despite a surfeit of territory and possession and then becoming desperate.
Clermont promise to be harder to crack but Saracens tend to find a way. Their template is the one the Lions look like employing after the squad they announced placed more of an emphasis on attitude than aptitude. Wasps are the Premiership leaders but their captain, Joe Launchbury, was left out of Warren Gatland’s Lions 41 for New Zealand and England will tour Argentina without any of the backs from a club that has harvested 12 try bonus points this season with Dan Robson, Christian Wade, Joe Simpson and Danny Cipriani omitted.
The Lions may include three of Wales’s management team and a coach each from England and Ireland, but all the coaches, with the exception of Neil Jenkins, have experience of the Premiership: Gatland coached Wasps in the 2000s, guiding them to league and European success; Rob Howley ended his playing career at Wasps; Andy Farrell played for and coached Saracens, a club Steve Borthwick captained; and Graham Rowntree made nearly 400 appearances in Leicester’s front row and was an assistant coach at Welford Road for a year before being recruited by England.
In the Premiership days of the respective Lions coaches, Leicester, Wasps and Saracens were pre-eminent at home and in Europe. Saracens are looking to back up last season’s Premiership and Champions Cup double, a feat last achieved by Leicester when Rowntree played for them, while between 2004 and 2008 Wasps won the Premiership four times and the European Cup twice.
All three clubs were or are singular in their outlook. Leicester dominated through their forwards and the tactical play of their half-backs, Wasps were a rescue home for lost souls, forging a team spirit that Saracens have taken on. All three, while having strong individuals, placed an emphasis on the collective, as will the Lions in the home of the World Cup holders and the leading team in the world this decade.
New Zealand have long been dominant in the Rugby Championship and Super Rugby but they will be facing a side stronger than Australia and South Africa and one that will be less indulgent than most of the teams in Super Rugby.
To look at Saracens, and Wasps and Leicester before them, is to catch sight of the Lions, albeit with Gatland and co lacking much time to prepare. Which is why they have assembled a squad that is enduring mentally and physically. The entertainers have largely missed out on a tour where the Lions will look, as Saracens did against Munster, to squeeze the All Blacks.
Wasps, like Saracens now, were known for their defence; that will be the form of attack for the Lions.
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