Munster must beat this Saracens selection.
Ideally, they’ll do it with a bonus point. If this was a different Saracens selection, then the requirements would be different. That’s no disrespect to this Saracens side but, quite frankly, when they haven’t picked Mako Vunipola, Jamie George, Vincent Koch, George Kruis, Billy Vunipola, Richard Wigglesworth, Owen Farrell, Sean Maitland and Elliot Daly, they need to be punished for it.
I think it can be put in terms as simple as this; if we want to compete at the top end of Europe this season, we must win this game and win it well.
There’s still quality in this Saracens selection – Lamositele, Spencer, Skelton, Wray, Itoje, Barritt and Lozowski all played in the Champions Cup semi-final last season and young guys like Singleton, Isiekwe, Earl, Lewington and Gallagher are more than capable of making a big statement here. Why the rotation? Mark McCall has big games in the Gallagher Premiership to plan for in the next few weeks – at home against Bristol, away in Sandy Park and then Worcester and Harlequins in January – and they are currently 22 points off Leicester Tigers in 11th place. That’s five regular wins, assuming that the teams above them keep losing, which isn’t a guarantee either.
If we take it that Saracens will lose players to the Six Nations, then every league point between now and the end of January is vital if they are to avoid relegation, as the likes of Leicester, Wasps, Bath and Quins won’t be as badly affected. Saracens’ February and March schedule looks particularly difficult in this context – at home to Sale, away to Wasps and Saints, Leicester at home and then Bristol away – a loss or two here and McCall could find himself looking at needing a tonne of bonus-point wins from his last 8 games post Six Nations to stave off relegation.
If he loses the likes of Billy Vunipola, Itoje or Farrell to a medium to long term muscle injury – which is always the risk when players have extra miles on the clock post World Cup – then relegation could be a real possibility. So in that context, Mark McCall can’t have an ego about his selections now. I’m sure he’d like to send over his entire front line squad to Thomond Park but circumstances being as they are, he can’t risk it.
They can still win this game – they have the quality – but Munster should really be helping Saracens focus on their struggle in the league by sticking a bonus-point win on them.
Here are the teams.
Saracens don’t really do “poor” selections.
Heavily rotated, yes, but there is an inherent quality that goes right down through their squad. You might not have heard of some of their lesser-known guys like Gallagher, Segun, Ibuanokpe, Kpoku or Reffell but they are all very good players or, to state the obvious, they wouldn’t be at Saracens.
With that said, I think Munster should be able to do the business here. The team we’ve selected – the back row in particular – seems to be aimed at minimising our exposure on kick exchanges.
Why? I think picking Beirne in the back row means that we’re going to actively target the Saracens lineout and simplify our own kicking strategy. We aren’t selecting Beirne in the back row to up our overall mobility there – as athletic as Beirne is, I don’t think he’ll up the pace of our forward ball-carrying – I think he’s in there to attack Saracens’ reduced cleanout ability in the wide fringes and to up our ability to mark space on Saracens offensive lineout.
Having Gallagher, Segun and Lewington in the Saracens backfield might see us testing them out under a few more high balls than we might have planned to if it was Maitland and Daly back there, but I wouldn’t expect to see us launching too many box kicking attacks unless we feel we have a strong advantage there during the game.
It also means that we have our best lineout calling forward from an attacking perspective and a defensive reading perspective from the start in Billy Holland. Ideally, with four specific jumpers and three really good counter-jumpers, we’ll be able to constrict Saracens by forcing Itoje to take more bailout ball at the front.
Racing did this to excellent effect in Paris.
Jack Singleton took a lot of the flak for Saracens’ lineout issues in La Defense but Saracens were under massive pressure to hit any kind of expansive target. Racing were getting a big aerial presence into the air at Four and Six and Singleton struggled to find any kind of space to hit a target with a Racing hand being there to disrupt.
Baptiste Chouzenoux and Wenceslas Lauret had a real influence on the lineout in this game and I think Beirne and O’Mahony can do the same. The presence of Itoje is an x-factor that will cause trouble for us in this regard. He’s probably the most athletic lineout jumper playing the game right now so Saracens will be keen to use him if they come under pressure on Iseikwe and Wray. They will use Skelton on certain front jump plays but he’s mainly a lifting and mauling component when he starts.
Itoje is most dangerous when he’s jumping at Six and I think this is where Beirne will come into play on full lineouts.
Bath’s contest at the back was fairly poor in this instance and they gave away the penalty for taking Itoje out as they came across the line. With Holland and, perhaps, Archer, at the back of full lineouts for this one, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get Beirne into the contest with Itoje, Isiekwe or Wray at Six.
Skelton and Lamositele’s positioning will be a key part of matching up with wherever Saracens are targeting.
Without either of the Vunipola brothers, (they have a Vunipola cousin at 10) Skelton and Lamositele are, in my opinion, their most dynamic maulers so they tend to use them in ways that keep them alive in the lineout for mauling purposes.
In that regard, we can get an idea of where Saracens are looking to throw the ball depending on how Skelton and Lamositele position themselves and behave.
Lamositele is in an “active” body shape here, while Skelton is loose and moving around in the line.
Looking at Lamositele in this instance shows us that he’s preparing to lift.
On this instance, it’s the reverse.
Now let’s combine them. Watch the front of this lineout.
Skelton tends not to jump without a standing hop lead-in and only really ever jumps in shortened pressure lineouts.
If we can use Lamositele and Skelton to watch where Saracens are building their lifting combinations, we can go a long way to making it a difficult evening for Jack Singleton. Lineout pressure will go a long way to taking some of Saracens’ power out of the equation.
I think this back row selection, heavily tilted towards the lineout, will allow us to exit more conservatively – Murray, Hanrahan and Scannell can just boot straight into the stands off restarts – and avoid too many aerial contests in our half of the field, something we lost quite definitively last season against the same opposition.
If we can manage that aspect of the game, we can stop Saracens from building territory and heavy possession that will suck the energy out of this game. We want pace, tempo and gaps around the sides of rucks – Saracens have nothing to lose and will be playing for a 4-0 loss if at all possible.
