Teams are up

[Raggs]

15. Kurtley Beale
14. Christian Wade
13. Elliot Daly
12. Jimmy Gopperth
11. Willie Le Roux
10. Danny Cipriani
9. Joe Simpson

1. Matt Mullan
2. Tommy Taylor
3. Jake Cooper-Woolley
4. Joe Launchbury (c)
5. Matt Symons
6. James Haskell
7. Thomas Young
8. Nathan Hughes

16. Ashley Johnson
17. Simon McIntyre
18. Phil Swainston
19. Kearnan Myall
20. Guy Thompson
21. Dan Robson
22. Alapati Leiua
23. Josh Bassett


15 Chris Wyles (224)
14 Mike Ellery (39)
13 Marcelo Bosch (94)
12 Nick Tompkins (58)
11 Sean Maitland (20)
10 Alex Lozowski (29)
9 Ben Spencer (98)
1 Titi Lamositle (44)
2 Schalk Brits (c) (200)
3 Vincent Koch (13)
4 Jim Hamilton (73)
5 George Kruis (134)
6 Michael Rhodes (54)
7 Jackson Wray (170)
8 Schalk Burger (23)

Replacements
16 Jamie George (170)
17 Richard Barrington (107)
18 Petrus Du Plessis (156)
19 Nick Isiekwe (5)
20 Kelly Brown (154)
21 Henry Taylor (7)
22 Alex Goode (228)
23 Nathan Earle (18)

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Well this should be a win, perhaps not a 5 pointer, since it's still Saracens, but we shouldn't be losing to that team.

Robson/Simpson is up for debate, I'd tend to edge to Robson, but others would go Simpson.  Happy to see Cips back at 10, and Symons back in the 2nd row.  Also happy to see AJ back at hooker (mostly back on the bench), he just doesn't do the graft needed to start in our backrow for me, though his carrying could come in handy.

I'd hope that we inflict some serious pain here.  A loss would be terrible for us, a narrow win not much better, but a smashed Saracens side, even a weakened one, would have plenty of them potentially second guessing themselves.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

Sarries are resting (or have injuries) on a lot of players. I make that (I think) 10 changes from the side that faced Munster?

Whereas our side is almost the same as faced Leinster (maybe one change?).

I can see Sarries taking advantage of Barnes who tends to allow the tackler a bit of time to get away from the ball, thus slowing the game down. In that regard, Simmo would be better suited.

Sarries also have a very fast defensive line speed, pretty much negating the fast ball that Robson would put out to Cips (and doing that Cips would get the ball a micro second before or after he got hit by Loz).

Sarries will be out to make sure that the ball gets no further than Cips or Gopps, so it will be in open play, second, third (etc) phases that our backs will have to shine.

We are going to have to face an intense game in the forwards and accept that the ball will be more with the forwards than we would like, and that Sarries will pump the ball over the top, so our backs will have to return that with either deadly accurate return kicks (highly unlikely to achieve that, we haven't all year yet) or by running it back at them (a much better choice, as long as the receiver actually gets to an area of the field where he has support).

Sarries will fight really hard in the rucks to push us off the ball or disrupt it, putting us on the back foot, so our forwards will have to man up.

Gonna be a tough old game.

[Raggs]

Whilst I understand what you're saying about Simpson, the fact he plays to the speed of the game, just makes me afraid that Sarries defensive line is going to have all the time they need to reset after every phase (at most 2), whereas Robson's faster pace, with Cips' vision, may have helped get us them slightly more on the back foot and in disarray.

I guess if Sarries effectively kill the ruck every time, then Simpson is a better starter, but if he doesn't push the pace whenever possible, he's just giving their greatest strength more time to prepare for our attack.

[Rossm]

Oh for a Paul Volley to leave his mark on young Lozowski.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

Whilst I understand what you're saying about Simpson, the fact he plays to the speed of the game, just makes me afraid that Sarries defensive line is going to have all the time they need to reset after every phase (at most 2), whereas Robson's faster pace, with Cips' vision, may have helped get us them slightly more on the back foot and in disarray.

I guess if Sarries effectively kill the ruck every time, then Simpson is a better starter, but if he doesn't push the pace whenever possible, he's just giving their greatest strength more time to prepare for our attack.

My guess is that Sarries will play Barnes to his limit on slowing down the ruck ball, to give their line time to re-form. Risk a penalty or two in the process yes, but I bet they will do just that, and my guess is that Dai is betting the same. Our pack and Simmo have to be wise enough to see the slow clear away by the tackler and tie them in and stop them getting clear, thus blocking in the ball, without Barnes seeing it as a ruse to get a penalty. Against Quins, we were not that clever. We let the Quins player bounce around on the floor slowing it down, but we let them up and out, so Barnes did not ping them. In other games I have heard Barnes clearly say, you could have got away, but you were too slow, got locked in, and give the penalty.

Got to play the refs to the way they see the rules.