[Dave L]

Had a look at the table this morning. The twenty points we put on Sarries means we ended up with the best defence in the regular season. 384 points conceded compared to their 387. Leicester third best with 408.

Not bad going considering how worried we were earlier in the season after the absolute shoeings we took at Exeter and Quinn’s.

[FarnhamShark]

There's nothing on the offy yet, except the final Prem table showing Saracens as 3rd and Sale as 4th. Can't imagine how you can work for the Club and get that wrong.

[Lord Elpus]

Sorries:- I'd guess around 8 to 10. Three scrum plus two in the red zone which we should have scored from one (JLdP held up).

[Lord Elpus]

There's nothing on the offy yet, except the final Prem table showing Saracens as 3rd and Sale as 4th. Can't imagine how you can work for the Club and get that wrong.

On the contrary I wouldn't have expected them to get it right.

[RinTin]

The win yesterday was phenomenal yes, but hell is it frustrating supporting Sale. So many what ifs from the season.

What if we had beaten Saints or Gloucester as we should have back in December and Jan?
What if we picked up a few more bonus points? - losing vs Bristol, 4 tries against Sarries, 4 tries against Saints in Oct.
How would we have done had the injury crisis not hit?

Very much knit picking as every team can make the same comments, we made it that's the key thing and are the in form team in the league. The above just made it so hard to keep the faith though. Joint most wins in the league and only third due to achieving second lowest amount of bonus points.

[Olyy]

It's weird how it feels like Saints dominated the league this year, and we had a scrappy/disjointed season yet we've ended up on the same number of wins

Just need to get the BP situation sorted and we'll be flying!

[Lord Elpus]

We should have won at Castle Grim. No wonder Axe went to shout at the hills.

[Major Bloodnok]

Didn’t think we conceded many penalties but 5 is ridiculously low. Anyone know how many sarries conceded?

Nine.

It was a hard but fairly-fought game.

[JohnJ of HM]

Had a look at the table this morning. The twenty points we put on Sarries means we ended up with the best defence in the regular season. 384 points conceded compared to their 387. Leicester third best with 408.

Not bad going considering how worried we were earlier in the season after the absolute shoeings we took at Exeter and Quinn’s.

But unfortunately only two teams with fewer points scored.

[Yareet]

Didn’t think we conceded many penalties but 5 is ridiculously low. Anyone know how many sarries conceded?

Prem Rugby has them at 9 which is still admirable

https://www.premiershiprugby.com/match- ... team-stats

Edit: Note to self - learn to read the last page of a thread

[Beardedshark]

Pretty good all round then. However scrum had them on toast

[poyntonshark]

YYYYYEEEEAASSSSSS, YEEEEAAAASSSSSS,YEEEEEEEAASSSSSS....
[Norwegian accent]Richard Hill, Schalk Brits, Steve Borthwick, Will Skelton, Raphael Ibanez, Thomas Castaignede, Justin Marshall, Thierry Lacroix, Schalk Burger, Dan Luger, Tim Horan, Rod Kafer, Jannie de Beer <spit>, Francois Pienaar, your boys took a hell of a beating about there......[/Norwegian accent]

I said I'd be celebrating with you on Monday. What an excellent game, discipline by both teams was excellent, with 14 penalties all game, we have conceded as many ourselves in one half I am sure. Defence in particular was top drawer. Both our sets of front rows were excellent, Our scrum was solid at its lowest point, and dominant at its highest, which it was for much. of the first half. I was initially worried with an error-strewn start, particularly as George Ford was a major culprit, but Sarries made errors of their own and George took control. I think Dugdale at MOM is a fair call, but many others would also have been fair, Ben Curry and Joe Carpenter did particularly well.

If we can beat Sarries at Sarries then we can beat anyone. As well as they did here, a midfield of Ford, Du Preez and James is far from ideal. Manu seemed in good spirits (although, when isn't he) and said it wasn't too bad. Two weeks to recover from anything hamstring-related doesn't sound feasible though. We'll just have to find a new and interesting way to beat Bath.

[Lord Elpus]

[Norwegian accent]Richard Hill, Schalk Brits, Steve Borthwick, Will Skelton, Raphael Ibanez, Thomas Castaignede, Justin Marshall, Thierry Lacroix, Schalk Burger, Dan Luger, Tim Horan, Rod Kafer, Jannie de Beer <spit>, Francois Pienaar, your boys took a hell of a beating about there......[/Norwegian accent]

You forgot Charlie Hodgson, Boris and ........................Alex Sanderson.

[ledzepsfr]

Dear Stats - how many full internationals did Sarries have in their 23?

[Yareet]

Dear Stats - how many full internationals did Sarries have in their 23?

Full bore for Sarries, if we can beat them we'll have definitely earned a playoff spot

Saracens Men team to play Sale Sharks:
1 Mako Vunipola
2 Jamie George
3 Christian Judge
4 Maro Itoje
5 Hugh Tizard
6 Juan Martin Gonzalez
7 Ben Earl
8 Tom Willis
9 Ivan van Zyl
10 Owen Farrell
11 Tom Parton
12 Nick Tompkins
13 Lucio Cinti
14 Sean Maitland
15 Elliot Daly

Replacements:
16 Theo Dan
17 Eroni Mawi
18 Marco Riccioni
19 Nick Isiekwe
20 Theo McFarland
21 Billy Vunipola
22 Aled Davies
23 Alex Goode

Is it 10 internationals in the starting XV plus the whole bench

Turns out it was 11 in the starting XV - I forgot Tom Willis has a cap

[Olyy]

Think we had:
7 starting, 2 bench

Edit: 3 bench, didn't realise Tommy Taylor had a full cap

[Beardedshark]

So totals 10 for us 19 them. Just highlights the scale of our achievement.

[Yareet]

Watched the game again last night. It’s amazing the difference knowing the final score makes. According to my watch, my heart rate was 2/3 what it had been on Saturday. I was positively chilled!

[Streatham Shark]

I watched the match afterwards, knowing the result. It is up there with the best Sale performances I've seen. The discipline was incredible, and the pack was incredibly cohesive. The defence was unbelieveable.

I know this is a Sarries team on a downward curve, but it still takes a hell of a lot to go down there and do what the lads did on Saturday, there's not that many teams that can dominate them like that, and you could tell they were on the back foot by the amount of whining and chat that came from Captain Fantastic.

After where we were at the start of the year it's frankly astonishing to not only be in the play offs, but to do it from third. If only we'd got a few more bonus points...

One thing on the low number of penalties - Luke Pearce had a brilliant afternoon, he got the balance absolutely right in terms of letting the game flow.