Glasgow Warriors’ head coach is telling his men that they cannot allow themselves to be distracted by or drawn into the dodgy tactics that characterise the way England’s champions go about their business when the teams meet in Saturday’s Champions Cup quarter-final.
The teams have become familiar foes in recent years, with Saracens repeatedly getting the better of the Scottish team in more ways than one, but Dave Rennie reckons his players and the match officials should now know enough to cope with their streetwise opponents.
“Often if they make an error it’s followed by a lot of push and shove from them to maybe bring the referee in to change a decision. We can’t afford to get sucked into that sort of stuff,” he said, stating categorically that he believes it is calculated, before adding that: “I’ve seen Saracens do it against every other side they play.”
It can be difficult to get the balance right in what is a confrontational sport, but for all that he knows his players cannot be pushed around, he wants them to place their trust in match referee Nigel Owens, the Welshman who is widely considered to be the best in the business.
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“We can’t be passive, but we’ve got to be smart around that sort of thing,” he said. “We saw it out here. We had a decision went our way and then a bit of push and shove and Fraser Brown got penalised and they got three points out of it. It’s clearly a ploy. I think Nigel’s pretty smart, he won’t get sucked into that.
“He’s an experienced ref, so we’re not even sending any clips in about Saracens. He’s been around a long time… he’s good enough, hopefully, to make the right decisions at the right time and we’ll trust his judgement.”
The teams have already met twice in this season’s competition, the results of those matches resulting in Saracens finishing the pool stages as the team with the best record, while Glasgow scraped into the last qualifying berth for the quarter-final, but Rennie believes the dynamics will change this time around.
“They were two pretty brutal encounters when we played them in the pool stage, but there’s no doubt this game will be more intense than any game we’ve played this year,” he reckoned.
“That’s what happens when you get into knockout footie. There’s a lot on the line and there’s no tomorrow for one of the teams, so we expect it to ramp up even more than the games we played against them earlier in the season. We’re steeling ourselves up for a brutal encounter.”
He believes his men can take confidence from different aspects of their previous encounters this season.
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“We’re going to be under pressure at various times and we’ve got to make sure we steel up defensively,” he said.
“Defensively we weren’t good enough last time. We fell off two or three really important tackles and they hurt us as good sides do. We defended really well when we played them out here. We need that sort of steel, we probably need the accuracy and tempo that we played with for maybe 60 minutes down there.
“When we controlled the ball and controlled the pace of the game, we were able to put them under a fair bit of pressure. We kicked really well that day. They’re very good at choking teams, so our discipline needs to be good. It was really just in the last 15 minutes or so that we lost the territory battle.”
By definition, that places extra responsibility on Glasgow’s replacements, as the requirement to up the energy levels becomes an ever more important facet of the sport.
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“We’re a fitter side, but you can put eight subs on late in the game and they’ve got real quality, but so have we,” claimed Rennie. “We’ve created depth, we’ve got guys who are used to playing at the tempo we play at, so we need real quality performances from our bench to lift us even further.”
The match will meanwhile be England captain Owen Farrell’s first since his game deserted him as Scotland staged their astonishing comeback at Twickenham earlier this month and Rennie is keen to ensure he has another torrid afternoon against Scottish opposition.
“He’s such an important cog for them that if we can bring line speed and shut down options and put him under pressure he’s like any 10,” he said. “That’s going to be our challenge. Even the best 10s in the world, (Ireland’s) Johnny Sexton was able to be shut down and put under pressure, you’ve seen it with (New Zealand’s) Beauden Barrett against line speed. If they get good go-forward and 10s have got time and space they’re generally pretty comfortable. We’re going to have to defend pretty well so we can get set quickly to get off the line and put him under a bit of heat.”
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