This was popular. The most well-supported club in English rugby, so far from their customary place at the top of it for so long, have retaken the podium. They took it courtesy of a last-minute drop goal by one of the most popular players in English rugby, so long of career that it came as some surprise to learn this was his first Premiership final. And, boy, did it go down well.
And they did it all against … well, we can safely say, fairly or not, Saracens are not the most popular club in English rugby.
There was something inevitable about the way they hung around in this one, riding the 12 points they conceded during a spell in the sin bin for their scrum-half, Aled Davies, in the first half, before waxing noticeably in the final quarter, when all the best champion teams make their pedigree tell.
They might even have scored the try that could have won the game with five minutes to go, had Wayne Barnes, the most popular referee in English rugby, not found himself caught between Billy Vunipola, on his umpteenth charge into the heart of the Tigers defence, and those self‑same defenders. Saracens were swarming on the Leicester line, just as they gathered to attempt their customary thrust in the last minutes of a final. And they had to stop for a scrum. Moment gone.
Them’s the breaks, as they say. They came away with just the penalty from that visit, which set up a finale of one’s dreams. Blink and Saracens let the latest of a seemingly eternal bombardment of kicks go unsecured and suddenly it was Leicester swarming instead. Freddie Burns assumed position, strangely to the right of the posts and actually some way further back than he needed to be. No matter. His drop goal was good – the reaction of him, the bench, the crowd in general enough on its own to bring a tear to the eye.
“I thought moments like this were just not made for me,” he said. “I’m in disbelief! When I started playing at five years old, I had two ambitions – to play for England and to win the Premiership. I’ve done both now.”
As the euphoric scenes played out at the end, the richness of the story made itself clear. There was Tom Youngs, the most popular player in Leicestershire, amid the bedlam, so recently retired and bereaved; there was Kevin Sinfield, so noble in support of his old mate Rob Burrow.
There was Steve Borthwick, there was Richard Wigglesworth, Chris Ashton, grand old men of English rugby, former Saracens all. Everywhere one looked at the climax there were beautiful moments.
Which is not to say the rugby was. After the most extraordinary and exhilarating final series of last season – and indeed of so many recent seasons – this was a return to the sort of nerve-shredding intensity of rugby as one might remember it.
But that, in turn, is not to denigrate what was on offer. Those who do not like kicking might not have appreciated much of it – most of it, even – but, if rugby’s more claustrophobic qualities are your thing, you could not take your eyes off this one. And in between the deluge of balls from the sky there was rugby to admire, Saracens’ penchant for an off-loading pivot as dazzling as Leicester’s sense for an outside shoulder.
The key event in the first half was that yellow card for Davies. Cards will continue to shape these epic narratives – more’s the pity – for as long as players are blamed for events that clearly have “no malice”, a phrase as embedded in rugby now as a banged head. As if the sport does not have enough random variables already feeding into that sacrosanct judgment that is the final score.
At least more of the cards now are being mitigated down to yellow, whatever the semantics in the reasoning. Leicester’s Matt Scott saw yellow himself for the same reason in those breathless last minutes.
When the geeks come to review this remarkable tale with a steady pulse, they will note the way Leicester took their chances when Davies was in the bin.
A break by Freddie Steward down the outside-centre channel paved the way for Jasper Wiese’s try, before the magnificent Wigglesworth exploited the disharmony at half-back to charge down Owen Farrell on the way to Leicester’s second.
Saracens had the second half to recover the six-point deficit that arose but just could not shift the fate of the day in their favour. Up stepped Burns, himself playing because of one of the darker twists when George Ford, in his last game in a Leicester shirt (for now at least), twisted an ankle in the first half.
That was a deeply unpopular moment, met with respect by fans and players of all persuasion. Thankfully, there were developments more popular to unfold.
