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Of all the games that Leinster supporters wanted to attend, and of all the games that Leinster wanted his fans to fill Aviva Stadium and be in full voice, this is next Saturday’s Champions Cup quarterfinal against the Saracens.
Everything about the showdown, mainly the smell of revenge for the final loss at St James’s Park in May last year to the relegation of the Saracens last January due to repeated breaches of salary cap regulations, had made this one off. the one.
Furthermore, it is difficult to think of a leading club in Europe that is not so affected by the absence of supporters to cheer it on. For a capacity of 50,000 spectators in Dublin, as in the quarter-finals two seasons ago when Leinster dethroned them 30-19, the Saracens would most likely have brought in just 1,000 to 1,500 traveling fans.
Indeed, in this era of hyper-animated teams, the Saracens are leading the way and one can imagine there will be more noise in the visiting ranks next Saturday. Even before the lockout, and then the empty stadiums after the lockdown, there didn’t seem to be much of a payoff for Leinster in qualifying for the last eight as top seeds, and there seems to be even fewer now.
Since the Saracens entered the knockout stages and gained an advantage in Leinster, they have been targeting the quarter-finals for eight months.
Consequently, as defense coach and forwards Alex Sanderson effectively admitted after last Sunday’s relatively insignificant 40-17 win over the Exeter Chiefs between highly experimental teams and young teams, every one of their six games since the restart has been with this quarterfinal in mind.
In fact, it looked like they used their game against the London Irish three weeks ago as a training ground for their powerful maul, which overcame the line on three of their six attempts that day and paved the way for fourth place.
Most likely, none of his top-line XVs showed up last Sunday, before which head coach Mark McCall admitted that his starting team had already been chosen. Virtually all of them have been given a two-week encounter in this game since playing their 28-18 loss to Fit Wasps, which turned on the much-publicized expulsion of Owen Farrell.
Of course, Farrell’s absence is a huge loss, and the expectation is that fullback Alex Goode will be chosen at the half in place of 20-year-old Manu Vunipola, even though he has started four of his last five games, landing 16 of their matches. 24 kicks to score 43 points.
The Saracens have been weakened by the departures that followed the confirmation of their decline. Of the 23 who lined up against Leinster in Newcastle in May last year, in addition to Farrell, another 10 have left.
Center Alex Lozowski has joined Montpellier on loan for a year, World Cup final substitute scrum half Ben Spencer has joined Bath after nine years at Saracens, 25-year-old Titi Lamositele has joined Joined Montpellier, the gigantic Australian padlock Will Skelton has moved to La Rochelle, Nick Isiekwe has joined Northampton on loan, Schalk Burger and David Strettle have retired, and Nick Tompkins has joined the Dragons on loan. Also, two of their best young players, winger Ben Earl and winger Max Malins, have joined Bristol on loan.
With many of them rejoining after what should be a fairly routine promotional push into the championship, especially given their own talent conveyor belt through the Saracen academy, the club nevertheless signs this season, they won’t go away forever.
Additionally, Maro Itoje, Mako and Billy Vunipola, Farrell, Jamie George and Elliot Daly have confirmed that they will stay with the club next season after their relegation from the Premiership for breaking salary cap rules. It is estimated that Mako Vunipola could well have recovered from his back problem to play Leinster and they also signed Welsh scrum-half Aled Davies from the Ospreys in late May.
Stuart Lancaster has speculated that the Saracens theme for this final, and especially their attempt to defend their Champions Cup crown, could very well be The Last Dance, referring to the Netflix series about the last roll of the dice from the Chciago Bulls for Michael Jordan. Generation.
Defense of the wolf pack
It may seem like a stretch to place Brad Barritt in the same company as the basketball icon, but the fearsome and tough 34-year-old has been a hugely influential figure within the Saracens for the past 12 years, overcoming all kinds of injuries to play more. . of 200 games for the club.
The captain of the Saracens and leader of his famous wolf pack defense has also extended his contract until the end of this relaunched 2019-20 campaign and this will only add to the deep reserves of emotional energy, as well as physical power, the current champions of Europe. will bring Dublin. They also know that they won’t have another Champions Cup campaign for at least the next two seasons.
They will re-dive into their Millwalles mentality that “nobody likes us, but we don’t care” and also label themselves, as Sanderson put it, as “by far the underdog.”
By right, it could easily have been the final again. Between them, Saracens and Leinster have won the last four European Cups, and Leinster is looking to emulate the Saracens’ double by registering a second in three seasons, and also become the first team to complete an undefeated campaign.
While it’s great that Sunday’s Toulouse-Ulster quarter-finals are televised on Virgin Media and Channel 4, it’s a terrible shame that this replay of last season’s finale is limited to BT Sport and therefore not is transmitted by terrestrial television. It deserves a wider audience, both inside and outside Aviva.
Leinster will know full well that they are about to be put to the physical test, especially by the pack of Saracens, in a way that they have not done to date in their four wins since the restart.
Because, at 3 in the afternoon at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, it is all duck or no dinner for this Saracen team.
- Congratulations to Anne Heneghan on becoming the first woman to assume the role of provincial branch president after being elected president of Connacht Rugby. She certainly earned it, as she became involved with Ballnrobe over 20 years ago, Heneghan was heavily involved in the campaign to prevent Connacht from disbanding in 2003 and later served on the province’s disciplinary committee for eight years.
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