Saracens are never more up than when they are down. It has been a season when adversity has challenged the English and European champions remorselessly and there was a point here, down to 13 men and having surrendered the lead to a side that had won one match all season, when they looked like cracking. It did not last long.
Eight minutes after going behind, they were back in front thanks to the quick thinking of the scrum-half Richard Wigglesworth, whose kick exposed a backpedalling defence and led to a try from Alex Lewington. At the moment the Ospreys dared to dream, they were shaken awake and forced to confront reality.
Saracens left most of their current England internationals at home, along with other influential players such as Brad Barritt and Ben Earls, trusting in those who will have to steer them through the next five rounds of the Premiership, which are being played during the Six Nations. It did not appear risky against opponents so lacking in confidence, but when the Wales prop Rhys Carré was sent off after four minutes for a dangerous tackle on Dan Evans, the home crowd sensed an opportunity.
Saracens responded by sacrificing a back, Elliott Obatoyinbo, and retaining eight forwards on a day when the wet and windy conditions were a deterrent to adventure and against opponents who attacked with a cudgel rather than a stiletto.
The only time they were discomforted was either side of half-time when Calum Clark was sent to the sin-bin for flicking the ball out of a ruck on his 10-metre line.
If there was calculation in Clark’s offence, it did not seem to merit a yellow card more than Adam Beard earlier preventing Saracens recycling quickly from a ruck near the Ospreys’ line, but the referee, Alexandre Ruiz, was by then giving an impression of a traffic cop on the Champs-Élysées: the more he whistled, the less he appeared to be in control.
His decision to send off Carré seemed to weigh on him. He ruled, after a lengthy review, that the prop had led with his right shoulder and made contact with Evans’s head, even though one camera angle suggested he had struck the full-back on the shoulder. The challenge was high because Carré was put off by Nick Isiekwe wrapping his arms around Evans’s chest a second before and the spirit of the times disbars the benefit of any doubt.
Saracens responded to the setback by kicking and mauling more than rucking. They were 3-0 ahead when Carré was dismissed and although Luke Price equalised after 14 minutes, the champions controlled the pace of the game through their dominance of the set-pieces.
The buildup to the match was interrupted by speculation that Saracens were preparing to release players so they would hit this year’s salary cap, but morale did not suffer and George Kruis, who has been linked with a move to Japan, was as influential as Wigglesworth.
It was only when Clark was in the sin-bin that Saracens lost control, Evans scoring just before and shortly after the interval when the visitors ran out of numbers and lost the lead.
It was a period when the decision to rest so many players looked as if it would backfire: Manu Vunipola showed his inexperience by following up a break with a loose pass on halfway that was picked up by the Ospreys and led to the position from which they scored their first try, but the 19-year old was not fazed by the lapse and played a key part in the victory, kicking 17 points and teasing the defence.
The Wales captain, Alun Wyn Jones, was making his first appearance since the World Cup and he made two telling interventions to prevent Saracens from going further ahead after Lewington’s try. First, he cleverly got on the wrong side of a ruck to prevent Sean Maitland from releasing the ball after Joel Kpoku’s 30-metre break had taken play into Ospreys’ 22 and then stopped Nick Tompkins from taking a try-scoring pass after Wigglesworth and Vunipola had combined on the left.
Vunipola’s fifth penalty gave Saracens a seven-point lead with 13 minutes to go and they held on with only the Ospreys wing Luke Morgan providing any scares, and then from deep.
“This was a really special win,” said their director of rugby, Mark McCall. “There is a spirit about this team. Today was all about togetherness and the performance spoke volumes.”
