Mikey Brown wrote:A lot of talk about Bath being terrible, but were Saracens not even particularly good? There's a weird thing that happens when a score surpasses a certain amount that seems to devalue anything the winning team have done. It's really hard to judge how much of the old Saracens standard is still there, or they're just the same side without the same ability to rotate dozens of top level internationals in and out.
I only watched the first half and then got spoiled for the score by a gleeful Wasps fan in my rugby group chat, but Saracens didn't do anything particularly noteworthy. They were solid and efficient but nothing particularly outstanding.
My first post in this thread "what are bath doing" was in response to the opening try they conceded. Looked like something a school side would concede.
The commentary kept talking about converting entry into the 22 into points. That was the whole story mid-way through the first half. Saracens were accurate and ruthless. Bath were poor and inefficient. They were so bad that one really wonders about what they do in training/preparation. I have seen many Barbarians sides (made up of players no better on paper) apply far more cohesive performances after a few days' get-together.
Saracens do the simple things well right across the board. They are always better than the sum of their parts. I think several of their older players need phasing out but I expect that to happen seamlessly. Their coaching/management crew would get that Bath squad on song in a few weeks, I'd guess.
Saracens are ridiculously efficient. They are just process-driven in attack, and relentless in defence. Makes them very hard to play against, let alone beat.
You just have to compare the error counts.
Bath were making errors with and without the ball almost non stop. You cannot compete if you keep undermining your performance with repeated dull decisions/execution.
To be fair, this is something you dont see with Saracens, who keep their error count low and almost never compound one by committing another.
