It's Time To Stop Dissing Saracens

In fact the time had come some while ago. One of the things that struck me markedly when attending the Toulon v Saracens European Cup final a couple of years ago was the number of English followers of other clubs who so vociferously supported Toulouse on the grounds that Saracens constituted a mercenary oupost of South Africa. Whereas Toulon are, I suppose, the great manifestation of growing your own talent. Yeah right.

Dudes can play

Saracens won the European Cup kast weekend with a functional display in dire conditions against Racing 92's assembled galcticos. It wasn't pretty and the usual plonkers were decrying all things northern hemisphere blah, blah, blah. Saracens did all this with a predominantly English team.

Well Saraces have just furnished an answer with their evisceration of Leicester in the Premiership play-off semi-final. They scored tries, they kicked goals, they were bloody impressive. If there has ever been a club pairing at second-row as monstrously good as Kruis and Itoje then I haven't seen it. And yes I did see Johnson and Kay play. And no I'm not suggesting that either of the Sarries lads is even in the same continent as the deity that is Johnson. Yet. Ben Kay, by the way, has emerged as a sane and sensible commentator on BT Sport. He makes as many insightful remarks as Austin Healey but without the need to signal himself as the biggest tosser in the room. Mind you, I'll take Healey over Stuart Barnes any day. At least Healey displays signs of self-knowledge.