Saracens start frantic January with major ‘confrontation’ at Leicester

The good news for Saracens is that the remaining months of 2024 won’t get much tougher than the first. This January the Premiership champions will play the French clubs Bordeaux and Lyon – currently first and second in their Champions Cup group – as well as high-flying Exeter on 27 January. Before all that, they kick off their new year with a clash against Leicester Tigers at Welford Road, a ground where they have not won since October 2019.

“When you look at it and speak about it like that, it looks tough,” says the Saracens attack and backline coach, Kevin Sorrell. “But this is what we relish.”

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If this seems like a chaotic period for the club then it is only marginally more frantic than what is now the norm in rugby union. It is widely accepted that the sport is better than ever before, with vast improvements in pace, power and skill elevating the spectacle to previously unimaginable standards. But this has come at a cost. Fixed seasons are almost a thing of the past as elite players are stuck on an endless cycle of training, playing or recovering all year round. Some England players, of which seven will be on show across both sides on Saturday, in effect walked off the podium after collecting their bronze medal at the World Cup and straight into their club’s match-day 23.

“We’ve had 16 straight weeks of Premiership and Europe so that is a long slog,” Sorrell says of a uniquely demanding season in which the Premiership Cup – essentially a development competition – ran alongside the World Cup to accommodate the league’s international players. “It’s been tough. The demands [on the players] are, yeah, it’s like a car crash every week. It’s so physical.”

Player welfare has never been more important but from a peak performance point of view, maintaining standards on the pitch is a difficult juggling act. Last week, Bath sent a second-string side to Welford Road knowing full well that a loss would knock them off top spot in the league. Only two late tries gave a semblance of respectability in a one-sided 35-22 defeat.

“It’ll be different for each club when they go for a completely different team.” Sorrell explains, all but confirming that this is a requirement to get through the campaign. “From our side, if you’re in the senior squad, we think you’re good enough to compete and good enough to represent us. So whoever it is, it’s an opportunity. But the long term view is that you need to rest your players, so it’s tricky in that sense.”

Luckily for Sorrell, those decisions are out of his hands. Instead the responsibility falls to two men, the general manager, Phil Morrow, and Tom Sherriff, the head of athletic development. That it takes more than one mind to handle the squad’s workload underlines just how challenging modern rugby has become.

“Phil has a brilliant history of extending people’s careers,” Sorrell says. “Just missing a game of rugby won’t necessarily make a huge difference. It’s the training time. It’s the cumulative effect that you get in the week. We’re managed quite strictly in terms of the on-pitch times to manage their workloads. Some clubs train four days a week. We train three days a week. So 75% of our week is training and that’s where most of the load comes from.”

Neither side have opted to field a weakened team as they go in search of a win to steer them back to where they believe they belong. Just over halfway in the season, Saracens are fifth, though a win could potentially see them end the weekend in first, albeit with a range of other results going their way. Leicester are seventh, just outside a six-team dog pile separated by just three points.

As expected, Sorrell says this is a sign of a healthy product. That a compacted league is proof that English domestic rugby is delivering on the field despite a litany of disasters beyond the boundary. However, this only reduces the opportunity for players to rest, especially for aspirational clubs chasing a semi-final spot.

With a narrow pitch and an opposition full-back in Freddie Steward who knocks the ball on, according to Sorrell, as frequently as a “rocking horse poos”, Saracens will likely boot the ball out as much as they can. And why not? They top the Premiership with eight tries from rolling mauls and have made the second-most metres from the maul. More of the same is expected, though Leicester have enough grunt themselves to match up in the close encounters.

“When [Steve Borthwick] went there, they went back to their DNA,” Sorrell says of the Tigers’ physicality. “They’ve got that gnarly pack. But they’re playing great rugby as well. It’s going to be a confrontation.”

Aren’t they all? There’s no such thing as an easy game of rugby. Not at this level. Even blowouts carry a degree of risk as poorly resourced and less skilful sides still have the ability to land a devastating blow in the tackle or at the breakdown. Danger is woven into the fabric of the game. It’s partly what makes it so exciting. But for those who are tasked with managing both the athlete and the man, the challenge has never been greater.