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The two best teams in the land, both hardened and on top of their game - this will be a Premiership final to savour

Don Armand and Brad Barritt are preparing to go into battle
Don Armand and Brad Barritt are preparing to go into battle

The system has played out as it should and pitted together the two best teams in the land, both hardened, both productive, both on top of their game, a final of equals and a finale to savour.

Saracens are serial achievers but they know that they will not be meeting the sightseers from the West Country that they encountered two years ago when Exeter Chiefs reached their first Aviva Premiership final and made the mistake of playing the occasion and not the opposition.

Chiefs and Saracens are now chiselled from the same granite, with their sense of togetherness, their hard-nosed attitude and their resolve to return home with the gleaming silverware.

The semi-final play-offs proved to be mere stopping-off points as Wasps and Newcastle Falcons were reduced to also-ran status long before the final whistles.

Saracens and Exeter stand apart, defining entities of the English game, primed to deliver for a 75,000 Twickenham crowd.

Henry Slade vs Alex Lozowski will shape Premiership final... and they would be perfect centre combination for England
Henry Slade vs Alex Lozowski will shape Premiership final... and they would be perfect centre combination for England

Only Eddie Jones among the neutrals will not be slavering at what is in store as the England head coach crosses his fingers that his clutch of South Africa-bound Test players come through unscathed. The cast list is impressive, the production a high-end draw card.

Chiefs’ director of rugby, Rob Baxter, speaks of there being “no excuses” for either side not to be able to produce something of note on the field of battle.

The stats alone back that up with Exeter on a run of 10 successive wins in all competitions, while the upturn in Saracens’ game from the low of their midwinter slump when they lost seven in a row to this point where they have averaged over 50 points a match in winning their past six fixtures is quite remarkable.

Saracens have a misplaced reputation for being a percentage-team, calculating odds, employing a kicking strategy first and foremost, ramping up pressure before hitting hard. The central truth of their breathtaking opening salvo against Wasps last weekend was that they have the ability to strike early and from anywhere.

Exeter vs Saracens is a clash in styles of the country's best two sides and makes for a mouthwatering Premiership final
Exeter vs Saracens is a clash in styles of the country's best two sides and makes for a mouthwatering Premiership final

The sheer force-field that is their forward pack, picking and driving and scattering would-be tacklers, from Mako to Maro to Billy with the thundering likes of Vincent Koch and Jackson Wray in support, was breathtaking to behold let alone play against.

Wasps were reeling as Saracens racked up a match-winning lead within the first quarter for what Saracens’ director of rugby Mark McCall described as “probably the best 20 minutes we have ever played”. It is not a bad time of the season to hit a peak.

With two such high-quality teams in opposition, there is an element of straw-clutching when trying to find fault.

Certainly, Saracens’ defence was more threadbare and ineffective than usual as Wasps hit back from that whirlwind opening blitz to score three tries in 13 minutes, five in total.

If such porousness had been a feature of Saracens’ season and, the Clermont home defeat apart, it has not, then Baxter and his team would be heading to Twickenham with broad smiles on their faces as they look to defend their title.

The Chiefs know only too well that a back-line with Owen Farrell and Brad Barritt as the defensive fulcrum will not yield easily. The key will be to secure enough possession to be able to take the game to Saracens and oblige them to defend through the phases.

Owen Farrell  - Credit: getty images
Owen Farrell could play a pivotal role Credit: getty images

As the teams are evenly matched, so do the clubs themselves carry reflections of each other. Their core values speak of graft and humility, of elevating team over individual ego, of the sum of the parts being what it is all about.

Saracens have long traded on that mantra. Exeter, in their own way, have followed suit, a band of West Country brothers with the likes of Don Armand and Olly Woodburn as intrinsic to the cause as are the likes of Test players, such as Henry Slade and Jack Nowell. It is remarkable how the Chiefs have managed to sustain that first push into a play-off placing only two years ago. They are a constant work-in-progress, never settling, always regenerating.

Only four starters from last year’s final – Nowell, Woodburn, Slade, Luke Cowan – will trot down the tunnel at kick-off. The emergence of the likes of fly-half Joe Simmonds and lock Jonny Hill, as well as No 8 Sam Simmonds, confirming his promise of 12 months ago, is testament to the excellence of the Exeter set-up. Chiefs finished top of the league table for the first time and by a margin of eight points. That was no fluke.

And yet Saracens, with Billy Vunipola demanding that his pesky hamstring behaves itself for one last hurrah, are in their pomp. There is an air of conviction about them, a desire to express themselves as well as provide a fitting send-off to two stalwarts, Schalk Brits and Chris Wyles.

But the only real certainty lies in the uncertainty of the outcome. For that, Twickenham can be grateful.