Saracens will rest a raft of key players including Billy Vunipola, Owen Farrell and Maro Itoje from Saturday’s final regular Premiership fixture against table-topping Wasps in Coventry but insist it will not diminish the club’s chances of retaining their title even if they end up playing away in the play-off semi-finals.
While Mark McCall, Sarries’ director of rugby, will not publicly announce his line-up until Friday, it is understood the vast majority of his leading internationals will not feature in a match his side need to win if they want to finish in the top two and claim a home draw. Instead Saracens are looking to keep their leading men fresh for next week’s European Champions Cup final against Clermont Auvergne in Edinburgh.
With 26,000 tickets already sold for this Saturday’s game at the Ricoh Arena, a Wasps victory will ensure a home tie – potentially against Saracens – but McCall says hosting a semi-final at Allianz Park is not his chief priority. “We’ve got to be sensible and make sure we’re at full strength for the games that really matter,” he stressed. “If I thought the home semi-final was all-important we’d probably send a different side down but we don’t believe it is. It would be nice but Exeter and Wasps aren’t in the Champions Cup final and we are. We’ll still send a highly competitive team down there.”
Saracens have six New Zealand-bound British & Irish Lions in their squad but Itoje insists there will be no slackening of intensity for their club as they go in search of the ’double double’ of successive European and Premiership titles. “We get our energy from within so it doesn’t really matter where we play,” said the England forward. “We are not here to sit back, see how it goes and hope. We want to go out there, be proactive, make a difference and impose ourselves on whichever team we are playing. If we don’t [earn a home semi-final] it’s not the end of the world because we’ve done it before.”
Last season, Saracens finished top of the table to secure a home semi-final in which they thrashed Leicester 44-17 to book a Twickenham date with Exeter Chiefs. In 2015, however, they managed only fourth place and defeated Northampton in the last four at Franklin’s Gardens prior to beating Bath in the final.
Nor is Itoje overly concerned by his side’s average performance against Bristol last Saturday when, for once, they fell below their normal high standards. “Traditionally this club has been pretty good at responding to setbacks. Although we won the game, our performance level was very off from what we expect of ourselves,” he said. “We definitely expect to front up this week against a very good Wasps side. Last week wasn’t perfect but sometimes that’s good in the grand scheme of things.”
Itoje, meanwhile, has revealed he momentarily thought he had not been chosen for the Lions tour after failing to hear his name being read out on television during last month’s squad announcement. The 22-year-old was regarded as a certainty to make the squad but, for a second or two, feared he might have missed out such was the noise that greeted Jamie George’s selection in Saracens’ team room.
“It was a crazy day to be honest. When Jamie’s name got read out everyone was screaming and we missed the player who was next, who was Iain Henderson. I didn’t hear and I was thinking: ‘Guys shut up, I don’t want to miss it. If it is me I need to know.’ There was a second [when he thought he had missed out]. Then they read my name out and it was cool.”
As the youngest player selected for the tour, Itoje will be expected to look after the cuddly Lion mascot in New Zealand and, with the squad due to depart in less than four weeks’ time, he is looking forward to the whole experience. “The first tour I followed properly was the 2009 series in South Africa. It was a cool tour, really special.
“To have the opportunity to be part of this tour is incredible and something you aspire to do as a child. Now I have the opportunity to do so I feel really privileged. This is another new experience and I don’t know the dynamics of how it works yet. Hopefully I’ll learn quickly. I’m looking to see how it unfolds.”
