RugbyRebels

Minute 63

Sarries win the lineout, with one of their famous throws straight down their side, and slowly maul about 10m forwards, initially coming infield but ending up back on the touchline. Sarries bring the ball out to Koch who is tackled straight down, and than out to Mario Itoje who's tackled backwards, a rare achievement for Leinster in this game. Sarries attack the shortside with Williams and then come back to the 15m channel ready to play, Wiggle is putting a little pace on their game

Minute 64
Sarries continue to make ground, mainly with someone the commentary team know as Alex Lovoski making ground down the left, but he can't quite send Billy into a 1 on 1 going either side. Eventually the ref deems the ball isn't coming out and it's an attacking scrum to red

Minute 65

Nothing happens, I suppose the respective packs are nearly ready to try and engage in the scrum, just pathetic from the players and the ref.

Minute 66

Sarries get a strong push going in the scrum, but it's messy and Isiekwe on at 6 (Maro is scrumming alongside Kruis) heels the ball back out the scrum from under Billy's feet but the ref had already signalled an advantage to Red for offside

Minute 67

Ball quickly in and out of the scrum this time, and Red 8 drives from the base carrying a few players with him, they get him down just out from the line but he's still able to ground the ball, daftly Billy makes the score look easy.

As an aside from the awarding of the scrum it basically takes 160 seconds for the ball to come back into play

Minute 68

After just having a hectic period of 160 seconds where the game didn't progress the only thing to happen in this minute is the conversion

Minute 69

Sexton kicks out to the left, Williams catches is tackled and then crawls before accepting he's tackled, but at least he buys time for Itoje to go off his feet over the ball. Sarries exit with a box kick from their 9 surprising nobody, they just don't mess around on exit plays, they might be the most disciplined team I've ever seen on exit plays so rarely do they leave their opposition an easy chance to run back at them or worse fail to even exit.

Kearny takes the ball and is hit backwards by Itoje and Koch, ball back to Sexton who puts up a fairly aimless high kick, luckily for Blue we find Wiggle has seemingly no clue where the ball is and instead of a simple catch the ball bounces. It's possible there's a Sarries hand that knocks the ball on trying to claim possession, but Toner definitely knocks the ball on which sees Red awarded a scrum, described by the Irish commentary team as obviously the wrong call which is... odd. I think my favourite evidence the referee has made the wrong decision is that Stuart Lancaster is deemed to look unhappy with it, for myself I can perhaps agree Burt looks unhappy but I can't discern the reason, it could be Toner knocked on, that his team is losing, that Farrell is superfluous to Sarries winning...

Minute 70

Strong scrum for Sarries, and they get the penalty. I still hate full penalties coming from technical restarts, Sarries had a dominant scrum and if they can't play from that then that's their problem

Minute 71

Sarries kick to touch, win the lineout and bring the ball out into midfield. It's another throw that's only straight in the sense it's straight down Sarries side

That said the best part of the minute is the Irish commentary team getting annoyed at losing and saying not only don't Sarries have much support (and as I recall from many 6N games the Irish are big on the side with more support being allowed to win) but Sarries are only successful because they buy in players and don't develop their own, genius.

Minute 72

Itoje and Kruis somehow decide to replicate the Goode fake take, but they both fake to catch the ball, the ball goes to ground and Leinster turn the ball over.

Leinster are going side to side but Sarries are pinged for offside after a dominant Itoje tackle. On another day the dominant Itoje tackle might be deemed high, and Sarries have had a lot of similar tackles so I presume it's an intentional plan on their part based on their analysis of Leinster.

Leinster are losing the plot now as they tap and go rather than kick for cheap metres and take the lineout. Leinster are making ground, but Sarries aren't being forced to scramble, it's all under control

Minute 73

More dithering from Blue 9 allows Billy in for another intercept. Quite possible Billy is offside, but dithering is deserving of much sympathy.

Sarries potter about on attack, and as the minute ends they even have Liam Williams over the ball to prevent a counter ruck and Farrell offering on a hard line coming back alongside the ruck.

Not much happening from Leinster and really time is ebbing away

Good job Bruce Craig doesn’t own Leinster. He’d be suing EPCR for £3billion and five titles in compensation for finishing the game 7 mins early.

RUGBY UNION | ALEX GOODE INTERVIEW
Saracens’ Alex Goode: 13 years of rugby and I’m now known as the guy who drinks beer

Full back lifts the lid on three-day party after Champions Cup win and tells Owen Slot why he regrets not enjoying himself more earlier in his career

Owen Slot, Chief Rugby Correspondent
May 25 2019, 12:01am, The Times
Goode says there will be more pressure on him against Gloucester as a result of the celebrations

Alex Goode’s notorious three-day bender has made some people laugh and some people tut. Now that he is sober, though, it all makes a lot of sense.

To recap: after Saracens won the Heineken Champions Cup final, two weeks ago, they had a night out in Newcastle, then the players returned home, did a long Sunday in a couple of chosen pubs in their home town of St Albans and, still not sated, Goode, 31, then led the way on Monday too. For the second two of the three days, his outfit was the full Saracens kit. When pictures appeared on social media, he was famous.

Yes, he was famous enough anyway. He has 21 England caps and countless winner’s medals with Saracens, but his mother maybe summed it up when she said to him: “Goodness me, you are European player of the year and everyone just forgets you are a rugby player.”

As he says: “It is amazing. Probably about 80 per cent of people now know me as this full-kit guy, not as a rugby player. Thirteen years of rugby and I am now known as this guy who drinks beer.”

He understands, of course, that he will now be watched with particular interest today. Saracens are playing Gloucester in the Gallagher Premiership semi-finals and, if he messes up, then people will be drawing obvious conclusions.


“Yes, that is what I have to live with,” he says, “and that’s why there is an element of more pressure on me.” He doesn’t mind though. On day four after the Champions Cup, he went for a sauna and a swim; on day five the whole squad were back in training and, he said, he beat most of them in the fitness tests.

“You enjoy yourself but then you have to back it up and train,” he says. That is the deal. “Everyone knew that.”


In hindsight, given the choice, he would probably rather that the pictures had never appeared on social media. “At the same time,” he says, “I’m not that worried about it.” It is this, he says, that has “perhaps surprised people a bit”.

The fact is that too often in professional sport, certainly in rugby, there is a perception that you should not be seen to enjoy yourself, that austerity, ice baths and protein shakes are your way of life and that you do not put a foot out of line. Goode says that he was once that way himself and he regrets it.

“For younger players, there are a lot of pressures, especially trying to make that England squad for the first time,” he says. “You just want to fit in. You want to go under the radar, just play well and keep the coaches and the other players happy.

“If I could have my time back with England, I would change my approach.” He says that he spent too much time in his room. “I’d love to go back to my 24-year-old self and say: ‘You’ve got here and you’ve done very well, but just be yourself. You can’t be quiet and worried about what other people are saying.’ I would be more dominant, more vocal, off the pitch and a bit on it too.”

He doesn’t think he is that unusual either: “There are a few outliers, but most people are a bit wary of not just the media, but also sticking themselves out there and then making themselves a target.”

Even young players coming into the senior squad at Saracens, he says, are reluctant to make themselves heard. “We try to get them to talk in meetings,” he says. It is hit-and-miss, but with few hits.


George Kruis, the 29-year-old England lock, he says, was very quiet when he was a more junior squad member. “For one Owen Farrell, who was happy to talk straight away, there are a million other kids who need time.

“Maybe when you are younger, you are worried about toeing the party line, saying what you should say, you keep yourself a bit guarded, you don’t give too much away. As you get older, you realise that if you play well and back it up, then you can be yourself.”

If there is a message, then, at the bottom of all the glasses that Goode drained in those St Albans hostelries, it is that professionalism in sport can sometimes be counterproductive. Goode has found himself repeating too many of the banalities of the profession and then questioning them.

“I am aware that often friends and family say, ‘You’ve done so well, that’s so great’ and you go, ‘Yeah, but on to the next thing.’ I’ve caught myself too many times this year going, ‘I’ll appreciate it all when it’s finished.’ But I’ve taken stock and you have to appreciate the here and now.’”

Saracens worked this out a bit as a team earlier this season, after defeats by Exeter Chiefs and Sale Sharks. “We talked a bit,” he says, “and we had forgotten what it is to appreciate winning. We were always seeking improvement. We’d beat a team and we’d be annoyed at each other: we should have done this better, we should have done that better. We weren’t saying: ‘Let’s appreciate that we’ve done well.’”

Goode was at the club in the Noughties, before the good times started to roll, so he has a useful frame of comparison: “For my first three years, we were poor, we had no culture, we never fought for each other. I thought that was normal. Now I go: how wrong we had it.

“So sometimes, now, when we have a few bad results and people go, ‘It’s rubbish,’ I am: ‘Hang on, we are still doing very well here, you don’t know what it was like before.’ It’s not a bad thing to have an understanding of how crap it can be, the infighting and the cliques.”

Clearly, this interview would not be complete without a few words of explanation on the fancy dress thing. Goode has developed a reputation for appearing at club celebrations in different guises. His favourite was Batman last year, though he remembers fondly when he and Duncan Taylor, the centre, went as the wet bandits from Home Alone.

He has only donned the full-kit look after Champions Cup victories. For the first one, in 2016, he was dared to by Chris Ashton, his team-mate at the time, and it has stuck since.

“My mum and sister were unaware of that side of me for many years,” he says. “My mum said: ‘Have you become the fancy dress person?’ She was quite happy for me, I think, because she is quite eccentric and I think she thought I was very regimented, structured, just went to training, drank protein shakes.”

So that is the lesson according to Goode. Professional rugby — sport — can still do what it always said it did: develop character and personality. It doesn’t always have to suppress it.

Mellsblue wrote:Good job Bruce Craig doesn’t own Leinster. He’d be suing EPCR for £3billion and five titles in compensation for finishing the game 7 mins early.

You think he isn't hatching a plan to sue them as a result of his team not winning? And it's a good point, I'd forgotten about doing the last few minutes, though there's some chance Sarries win contact and Leinster don't have a plan B

I like the article on Goode contains regret his photo went public, but not regret for him posting up the address of a party which just happens to be George's house.