No Owen Farrell, no problem. Saracens will face considerably sterner tests than this as the season goes on but life without the former England captain got off to just about the ideal start for Mark McCall’s side.
After 16 years as a key cog in the team, it is inevitable Farrell’s influence is going to be missed – they could have done with his trusty right boot here, maybe his ruthless professionalism towards the end too – but five tries and an impressive performance from Elliot Daly will help McCall usher in the new era he is determined to build.
The same cannot be said for Gloucester, who finished second bottom last season and are undergoing growing pains as they attempt to expand their game. They proved far too accommodating for their new-look opponents, who ran in tries through Rotimi Segun, Ivan van Zyl, Tobias Elliott and two for Andy Onyeama-Christie. A brief flurry with the match already taken away from them added a little respectability, but not a great deal more.
That both Vunipolas – Mako and Billy – have left and McCall’s decision to start with Jamie George and Ben Earl on the bench only added to the sense of something different in the Saracens ranks but Daly was on his mettle. He set up two tries and linked well with Fergus Burke, the 25-year-old Kiwi making his debut at fly-half. Maro Itoje, another England stalwart who remains and who has assumed the captaincy, was another fine performer, stealing a lineout early on to set the tone. “Maro is the oldest [member of the pack], all the rest of them are 26 and under, it’s probably the first time that’s happened,” said McCall. “I thought he looked like he meant business and made a lot of important interventions – moments that get you the ball back or give you momentum. Maro is very good at that.”
For Gloucester, some of the pre-season optimism has evaporated. They too have undergone a summer makeover and if Saracens’ is more pronounced due to the personnel they have lost and the sheer number of international caps, Gloucester have a new, all-Welsh half-back partnership in Tomos Williams and Gareth Anscombe, an electric wing in Christian Wade and an intention to play on the front foot.
Accordingly, they began in a hurry – forcing Burke into a rank pass early on – but soon ran out of ideas. Saracens are nothing if not dogged in defence, bringing a ferocious line-speed, and in the opening 15 minutes they drew the sting from the home side. They had threatened through Segun just a minute before his opening try – his grubber was too heavy – but when Daly went to the boot his kick was perfectly measured for his winger to gather and score.
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Try No 2 came when Van Zyl picked off Anscombe far too easily and had enough pace to get to the line before Elliott added a third with Daly again the provider. It was hard to see a way back for Gloucester but Burke’s two missed conversions gave them a glimmer of hope and after battering away at the Saracens line on the stroke of half-time, Freddie Thomas squeezed over to get them on the board.
Whatever hope Gloucester had did not last long. An inability to gather Saracens’ kick-off for the second half proved costly and soon enough Onyeama-Christie plunged over at the back of a driving lineout. A Burke penalty turned the screw and though Freddie Clarke burrowed over for Gloucester shortly after coming on, Onyeama-Christie had his second after a smartly-taken lineout. Burke continued to polish up his goalkicking with another three points before a late rally from Gloucester saw tries from Jack Clement and Seb Blake. You suspect that had Farrell been playing, Gloucester might have found those last two scores harder to come by.
“There were glimpses in the game of what we’re trying to do,” said Gloucester’s director of rugby, George Skivington, who can be pleased with how 20-year-old Afolabi Fasogbon acquitted himself at tighthead on his first Premiership start. “Ultimately, we gave away too many soft penalties when we weren’t under pressure.”
