English club rugby has had better seasons but there was nothing wrong with this compelling finale. For the first time since 2019, Saracens are domestic champions and able to smile again after their well-publicised salary-cap travails and painful last-ditch defeat to Leicester last year. They also had the contest’s dominant character in the form of Owen Farrell, who once again bent a big game to his considerable will.
Saracens needed every ounce of resilience at their disposal because a gloriously sun-splashed occasion, briefly interrupted by a few Just Stop Oil protestors flinging their orange powder around, contained numerous twists and turns. They had been ahead 20-13 at half-time but entering the final 15 minutes it was Sale who led 25-23.
In the end, though, Saracens crucially seized the moment to secure their sixth league title in 12 years. Sale’s young full-back Joe Carpenter had a clearance kick charged down by an onrushing Duncan Taylor and, with turnover ball secured, Elliot Daly arrowed his way into the left corner. Then, with only nine minutes remaining, the scrum-half Ivan van Zyl was adjudged to have grounded the ball beneath a sensational last-ditch tackle from Carpenter and Saracens finally had some scoreboard daylight.
Both teams’ legs must have been desperately heavy by the end but all concerned deserved credit for putting on a relentless show. The remarkable Tom Curry was everywhere for Sale and Max Malins was back at his sharpest but it was Farrell, narrowly edging his fly-half duel with George Ford and also contributing 15 points with the boot, who ultimately guided his team home. He and his teammates sought to swerve the loaded word “redemption”, preferring to dedicate victory to their two departing veterans, Jackson Wray and Taylor.
The drama partially made up for the gaps in the stands, with the attendance more than 10,000 down on the 72,784 who watched last year’s final between Saracens and Leicester. Saracens and Sale do not have the biggest followings in the land but it felt like a further sign of the times. If the cost of living crisis is a partial factor, ticket pricing is clearly among the areas that need a strategic rethink.
For a while it was not quite the Saracens massive of old, either. Neither of the Vunipolas were involved, with Billy already sidelined and Mako withdrawn from the bench with a bad back shortly before kick-off. The north Londoners did at least still have the ageless Alex Goode but their reserves of experience up front were further diluted when Jamie George ducked into a tackle from Curry and played no further part in the contest.
When Sean Maitland also limped down the tunnel inside the first quarter it should theoretically have been a chance for Sale to capitalise as the demonstrators were also led away to loud boos from unimpressed sections of the crowd. Instead Saracens broke down the right and Goode put in a clever rolling chip ahead. The Sharks could not deal with it and, with Malins in prime position to score, Curry took him out to concede both a penalty try and a yellow card.
The scrum decisions, though, were increasingly in Sale’s favour and suddenly the pressure was on Saracens. The dynamic, low-slung Akker van der Merwe is a hard man to stop from close range and the replays confirmed he had indeed grounded the ball successfully. Ford’s conversion made it 13-13 and, with Curry returning to the fray, the Sharks were circling.
They reckoned without a perfect left-footed punt to the corner from Daly, a lovely delayed offload from Farrell and Malins’ sharp acceleration which paid immediate dividends for Saracens at the other end. If the game was not at the same other-worldly level of intensity as the previous weekend’s Champions Cup final it was a highly absorbing, see-sawing contest nonetheless.
A vivid spectacle felt important for the health of the domestic game. Rugby is not always great at seeing the bigger picture and there is no point having grand finals if they are not, well, properly grand. Saracens clearly wanted to up the tempo but it was Sale who tipped the match on its head within five minutes of the restart. Curry released Van der Merwe through the middle and the hooker poked a hopeful ball towards the line. Daly could not gather and a last-gasp dive by the alert Tom Roebuck delivered an unexpected score.
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The ebb and flow duly continued when clever approach work from Farrell appeared to have put Daly over for a try at the other end, only for it to be disallowed because the latter’s boot had grazed the touchline. Despite another Farrell penalty, Sale were quick to respond, a series of threatening phases ending with Curry charging towards the line and replacement prop Bevan Rodd shrewdly exploiting the blindside to score.
Ford’s fine angled conversion put Sale ahead for the first time and set up a furious end game. Daly was just wide with a long-range penalty effort but, critically, the Sharks could not quite convert a prime attacking lineout position deep in opposition territory. “If we score there, it’s going to be tough to stop us,” lamented Sale’s retiring captain, Jono Ross, afterwards. Daly and Van Zyl, assisted by the television match official, duly ensured they paid a weighty price.
