Why Dallaglio believes ‘ominously good’ Saracens are the team to fear
“Even if this is a home-and-away game, you still need to get off to a quick start since the season seems rushed. Every outcome increases the risk a little bit because, in the old days of 22 rugby rounds, you could afford to miss a couple and still make up ground. Every club has experienced one or two off days this time around, but you can never have too many of the
“You have just put yourself in the best shape of your life after returning from a World Cup, so you should be eager to use all that fitness in a very positive way when you return to your club.
Every club uses different strategies, and the director of rugby conducts rational discussions with players about their physical, mental, and emotional well-being following the World Cup, as well as the club’s state of affairs. Are we at the top, middle, or bottom of the table? Although everyone works at it differently, you have to give the England players for Saracens credit for returning with style and capitalizing on their momentum.
Is this the ideal comeback for @maroitoje, the Gallagher Premiership Player of the Match?
After the World Cup, he talks about the potential of the Saracens and the beauty of sports.Pic.twitter.com/E9J3Ee9nQ7 #GallagherPrem
TNT Sports will air rugby on November 4, 2023.
The likes of Ben Earl, Mario Itoje, and Jamie George performed pretty darn well in the World Cup, even though they didn’t get what they wanted out of the competition. You want to take that momentum, form, enthusiasm, and excitement to really get your club season off to a great start.
“Talking about the Premiership without beginning with the champions is pointless.” They appear menacingly strong; 1-15 started for his country against Leicester, and Leicester, for whatever reason, did not select any of their younger players who had only participated in a couple of World Cup matches.
To be honest, I don’t understand why you can’t just return right away, but every player and team has their own schedule for playing. Perhaps they didn’t think they would win the game at first, but the fact that Saracens triumphed (32–17) without really going into second or third gear was concerning for the rest of the league.
Due to persistent pay cap violations, Saracens was automatically demoted to the Championship in January 2020. Since then, they have battled their way back into the first division, making it to the Twickenham final in each of their two seasons back. Dallaglio is incredibly impressed with their renewal.
“Listen, they are an exceptionally well-run club right the way down to the academy. I don’t really get involved in the controversy, that has been and gone and they have been punished. You can talk about whether the right thing was done by the powers that be but that is very much in the past.
“They went down to the Championship, rebuilt themselves, streamlined a little bit as a club but they are still incredibly well run economically as a club, so the structures and processes that were put in place from the very beginning by Nigel Wray and the family are very much those structures now.
“Coaching-wise, they have had real consistency, continuity but they have tweaked things. You have got Joe Shaw there who is the head coach, Mark McCall who is a Saracens lifer but equally the players, if the majority of your squad are going off playing international rugby, there is a freshness about them when they leave and when they come back again and that helps to keep the coaches on their toes and it also helps to keep the players on their toes.
“They have also recruited exceptionally well in and around that international quality. Look at some of the players, the likes of Tom Willis, the Argentinian chap in the back row (Juan Martin Gonzalo Samso), they are always keeping one eye on the future, they are always looking to challenge their playing group to tell certain players you might be an international but you have got to be playing well to get in this team.
“And their coaching is exceptional. They are very much the team to beat and having regathered and regained the Premiership title, their big challenge now will be to see how much they can impact on European rugby which has been dominated by the French and the Irish teams.”