Saracens ready to go again and show Exeter Chiefs who’s boss in Premiership semi-final

Try time: Saracens’ Jackson Wray touches down during the north London club’s 34-13 Premiership win over Exeter in September
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Chris Jones19 May 2017

While Saracens were busy retaining the European Champions Cup against Clermont Auvergne and then recovering from that ultra-physical encounter in Edinburgh, Exeter were enjoying a carefully-planned build-up to tomorrow’s Premiership semi-final at Sandy Park.

As a result, the feeling is that the Devonians will have more in the tank than Sarries, but the big question is whether they will be match sharp.

Like Sarries, Exeter try to impose their game plan on opponents through relentless pressure. The big difference, though, is that the Chiefs have not played since beating Gloucester nearly two weeks ago.

Mark McCall, Sarries’ director of rugby, is a big fan of what his opposite number, Rob Baxter, has achieved and expects his players to have to dig deep to keep their hopes of another Premiership and European double alive.

“Exeter have been on fire,” he said. “They have not lost a game for a long time and they are playing at Sandy Park, so for lots of reasons it is going to be a very difficult game for us.”

The brutally-honest Baxter was happy to lay bare his squad’s shortcomings earlier this season — and to explain how they put things right.

Exeter made a poor start — possibly a hangover of having made the Premiership final and then losing 28-20 to Sarries at Twickenham.

Baxter said: “Until Clermont came here and beat us in October, we were hiding behind everything being okay. We were in the Premiership Final last season, we went to Wasps for our first game of this season and only lost away by five points to a good side.

“We had won our three pre-season fixtures and we were kind of hiding behind some facts and figures.

“What we needed to do was stop and say that it didn’t feel right; it didn’t feel like we were pressing on from last year. Once we addressed it — and we addressed it very quickly — it has been a sharp upward curve for us.”

That curve saw Exeter finish the regular season with a run of eight successive maximum-point victories, while they have lost just twice at Sandy Park in the league this season — to Sarries and Bath.

Besides the confidence generated by their outstanding Champions Cup triumph at Murrayfield last Saturday, Sarries are unbeaten in their last five matches against the Chiefs since Exeter’s 24-20 win at Allianz Park in May 2015.

The Chiefs also boast loyal and raucous local support, yet the Sarries players have consistently shown an ability to handle hostile occasions. This season they have beaten Toulon in France and were victorious in Dublin against a Munster side backed by their famous — and very vocal — red army.

England and Lions lock George Kruis is adamant Sarries can handle the pressure of attempting a second double triumph and said: “We have got the same scenario this year as last season and we can learn off the back of that because it is an identical situation.”

This could be Sarries’ most demanding away day this season and, as Baxter admitted: “We have talked for a long time this season about what it would take to become champions — and one of the things you have got to be prepared to do is beat the team that beats Saracens, or beat Saracens yourselves.”

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