With one of their London Welsh jokers still to play, Saracens were always likely to take the fourth play-off spot, and that they duly did. Four tries in nine minutes at the start of the final quarter, three of them by Chris Ashton in the space of five minutes, were enough to make the situation safe, even allowing for Exeter’s own surge of late points at home to Sale. Final-round rugby often has a touch of the surreal about it – see this season’s Six Nations – and so it was here.
Except there’s nothing very surreal about a London Welsh hiding – indeed, the 21-17 scoreline after half-an-hour was the surreal one. Ten minutes into the second half it was still touch and go, even though Saracens were nurturing a 16-point lead. But the second-half score ended up being 42-0, as Welsh cruised towards a final tally of 1,021 points conceded this season, surpassing West Hartlepool’s record in 1999, which was gathered over four more games. Remarkable, then, that for so long in this game the destiny of that fourth spot was a live issue.
“It’s been a stressful day,” said Mark McCall, Saracens’ director of rugby. “Despite scoring four tries in the first half, we did some pretty average things and still had a big job to do in the second. I’ve never been in this situation before — I don’t think many coaches have. There are so many variables. It’s not a simple case of getting a bonus point. There was a screen behind me showing the Exeter game. We had someone trying to do the maths, but he got a bit flustered as well.”
Flustered was the word. It’s not a common directive to win by as many points as you can, and not an easy one when win by many is what you’re expected to do. Certainly, Saracens made heavy weather of their mission for much of the first hour. Mind you, they finished that period 40-17 up, so it wasn’t exactly panic stations, but it was a long way from exhibition stuff – and Welsh spent much of the first half on the attack, racking up a couple of tries to close within four points on the half‑hour mark.
Tom May, playing his last game of a long and distinguished career, skipped through the Saracens midfield in the 11th minute, while his team were down to 14 men, to set up Nic Reynolds for a fine try. That levelled the scores, after Billy Vunipola had opened with a pushover try following Matt Corker’s yellow card.
Welsh’s second came on the half-hour, when the excellent Chris Elder rose to take the restart after Saracens’ third try and cantered clean through to keep the visitors honest. At that point, Saracens looked anything but urgent, although their bonus-point try was registered on the stroke of half-time, when Ashton was driven over for his first.
A tapped penalty sent Alex Goode jinking home just after the break to stretch Saracens’ lead to 16. It did not feel enough, even though the news was that Exeter were labouring, too, against Sale. Anyone who has been following the Premiership closely, though, knows that when it comes to Welsh the final quarter is when teams tend to make hay. So it was to prove.
On the hour, Juan Figallo drove over for try number six, before Ashton took over with three in five minutes.
Farrell looped round Vunipola to spark the first, Goode’s off-load sent him away for the next, before Duncan Taylor’s easy break set him up for his fourth with 11 minutes remaining. That brought up a 61-17 scoreline, which more or less put things to bed. Charlie Hodgson’s try in the corner with three minutes to go certainly did. Farrell converted the lot, missing only one of his 10 conversions, five of which were from the touchline.
The formalities were over. Saracens were safely through. But this was not real rugby. That resumes next weekend.
