Saracens vs Munster

First topic message reminder :

Date: Sunday, December 16
Kick-off: 15:00
Venue: Vicarage Road
Referee: Pascal Gauzere (France)
Assistant referees: Jérôme Garces (France), Jean-Luc Rebollal (France)
Television match official: Gérard Borreani (France)

Munsters selection hinges on two facts, one the selection of O'Gara at ten and two, not having Keith Earls available. Earls went through the saracens defence last week like a hot knife through butter. He and Downey had a free reign over Farrell and Barritt. Problem was that O'Gara rarely recognised this advantage, kicking away too much attacking ball.

Saracens have moved Owen Farrell from outside centre to fly-half for their Heineken Cup Pool rematch with Munster at Vicarage Road on Sunday.

Both teams are level on match points in Pool 1 and in team news ahead of what will be a near sell-out crowd in Watford, Farrell starts the game at ten, with Joel Tomkins, David Strettle and George Kruis all coming into the starting line-up from the side that faced Munster last weekend.


The teams:

Saracens: 15 Alex Goode, 14 Chris Ashton, 13 Joel Tomkins, 12 Brad Barritt, 11 David Strettle, 10 Owen Farrell, 9 Richard Wigglesworth, 8 Kelly Brown, 7 Will Fraser, 6 George Kruis, 5 Mouritz Botha, 4 Steve Borthwick (capt), 3 Matt Stevens, 2 Schalk Brits, 1 Rhys Gill.
Replacements: 16 John Smit, 17 Mako Vunipola, 18 Petrus du Plessis, 19 Eoin Sheriff, 20 Ernst Joubert, 21 Neil de Kock, 22 Charlie Hodgson, 23 Chris Wyles.

Munster: 15 Felix Jones, 14 Doug Howlett (capt), 13 Casey Laulala, 12 James Downey, 11 Simon Zebo, 10 Ronan O'Gara, 9 Conor Murray, 8 James Coughlan, 7 Peter O'Mahony, 6 Dave O'Callaghan, 5 Donnacha Ryan, 4 Donncha O'Callaghan, 3 BJ Botha, 2 Mike Sherry, 1 David Kilcoyne.
Replacements: 16 Damien Varley, 17 Wian du Preez, 18 Stephen Archer, 19 Billy Holland, 20 Peter Butler, 21 Duncan Williams, 22 Ian Keatley, 23 Luk O'Dea.

Haven't seen the breaks and passes I expect from Laulaula, but boy is he standing up in defence

The Blues really miss him

Could they not have replayed what the penalty was for, instead of showing the drop goal attempt?

According to the commentators, Farrell can ONLY kick while under a lot of pressure. That would make him a pretty useless kicker.

Arm to the face, YC to Fraiser.

Penalty yes yellow no.

SaracenS are their own worst enemies today.

Certainly a penalty, yellow may be harsh

wales606 wrote:Arm to the face, YC to Fraiser.

Slightly harsh.

Can't believe Sarries have picked up the first yellow after the cynical foul play Munster have got away with on their own line all game

Someone give Laulaula the ball in space

Great defence Sarries

Drop goal o'clock

But O'Gara makes a bit of a mess of it.

Munster missing a bruiser in the pack, or Earls in the backs to get that little bit of momentum.

The referee could have penalised Munster twice there forbeing tackled and not releasing before trying to get up.

wrfc1980 wrote:Can't believe Sarries have picked up the first yellow after the cynical foul play Munster have got away with on their own line all game

Somebody loves Munster anyway, we need Keatley on if we expect our backline to go anywhere

Biltong wrote:The referee could have penalised Munster twice there forbeing tackled and not releasing before trying to get up.

And he could have done similar for Saracens during the last of their attacks.

Biltong wrote:The referee could have penalised Munster twice there forbeing tackled and not releasing before trying to get up.

There was certainly one blatant not releasing that I saw.

valjester wrote:

Biltong wrote:The referee could have penalised Munster twice there forbeing tackled and not releasing before trying to get up.

And he could have done similar for Saracens during the last of their attacks.

Could have been, I must have missed it.

great kick rog, these are his conditions

Not a fan but he is kicking well

Munster are just absolutely clueless in attack. Rog playing the corners really well but not doing much in terms of creativity in the backs.

O'Gara has always been a great territorial kicker

Horan on, if the ref is looking halfway at the scrum, Munster are about to concede a penalty at every scrum.

No points during the sin bin. Massive for the game.

O'Gara misses an important one.

The ref hasn't been great. The number of players crawling after the initial tackler has fallen off is embarrassingly high.

Feel for Stevens there as well, he was never going to roll away with the Munster second row sitting on him.

formerly known as Sam wrote:The ref hasn't been great. The number of players crawling after the initial tackler has fallen off is embarrassingly high.

Feel for Stevens there as well, he was never going to roll away with the Munster second row sitting on him.

Agree, he also blew that very quickly as well

Fraser back on & earns a great penalty!

formerly known as Sam wrote:The ref hasn't been great. The number of players crawling after the initial tackler has fallen off is embarrassingly high.

Feel for Stevens there as well, he was never going to roll away with the Munster second row sitting on him.

In fairness the penalty that led to Saracens going ahead was the exact same. Horan is appalling. That bonus point conceded by Rogs stupidity last week could be vital in deciding the pool.

Farrell gets the kick to push the game pretty far away from Munster

They need a try.

19 - 13

19-13 come on Sarries keep the defence solid.

Stupidity by LLL.

Get keatley on NOW!

Archer and Horan in the front row, FFS that has to be one of worst front row prop combinations in history.

I thought that penalty should have gone to Munster.

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:Get keatley on NOW!

Why? There is 80 seconds left. Vital not to concede another score.

Sarries scrum & defence have been crucial.

Well played Sarries!

valjester wrote:Archer and Horan in the front row, FFS that has to be one of worst front row prop combinations in history.

Yet i'm pretty sure Saracens LH poopped up first in the last scrum.

valjester wrote:

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:Get keatley on NOW!

Why? There is 80 seconds left. Vital not to concede another score.

Reading that back, I should clarify that them two statements are not related. I'm more complaining that Rog lasted so long.

Bye bye ROG, need a bonus points win in Edinburgh and possibly against Racing too.

wales606 wrote:I thought that penalty should have gone to Munster.

Me too, but you know the ref wont penalise the home team at the 79th minute.

I quite enjoyed that match. Was tough and uncompromising.

There are nearly more Munster fans there than saracens fans.

Why is the support for sarries so bad?

Good win for Saracens, they deserved it. This Munster team is average, should be slaughtering them, we won't come anywhere near our full potential with a geriatric out half who has never mastered two of the 4 basics in outhalf play.

Well on the bright side, Rog should only have at most 3 more games as first choice 10 for Munster left.

O'Gara actually had an excellent game.

He kicked well, we offered nothing in the backs, we had an extra man for ten minutes and we went backwards he stands too flat offers no running threat and inhibits out backs.

LeinsterFan4life wrote:There are nearly more Munster fans there than saracens fans.

Why is the support for sarries so bad?

i doubt they will get good crowds until they have had somewhere they can call "home" for a year or so.

Artful_Dodger wrote:O'Gara actually had an excellent game.

Not really, he was excellent at certain aspects during the game but he was a major weakness in defence which Sarries targeted well at times. Not to mention that fact that he is a creative drain who fails to get anything going with a backline and is much too inclined to opt for the garryowen.

Artful_Dodger wrote:O'Gara actually had an excellent game.

For his terriotorial kicking, yes. But that doesn't win you any points. Munster were just clueless in attack. I know it wasn't just ROG at fault for that, but he created very little and often just killed any momentum Munster had. One nice chip aside.

I thought O'Mahony was brilliant and he carried very well. 5 defenders beaten according to the stats. He needs to be used as a carrying option more often.

Thomond wrote:He kicked well, we offered nothing in the backs, we had an extra man for ten minutes and we went backwards he stands too flat offers no running threat and inhibits out backs.

God Thomond, if anything he stands much too deep, there were times this week and last, when Murray had to fling the ball back about 20 yards to find Rog standing way back in the pocket.