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gingergenius
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There really is something special happening at Saracens.
As a fan, there are a number of negatives. The fact we don't have the support base of towns like Northampton, Gloucester, etc. The fact we are known as Saffacens (rightly or wrongly). The fact we only have one player in the England world cup squad. The fact we don't have a proper home yet (even though I do just about remember trips to High Barnet as a littl'un).
But everything else is perfect. Recently, there's been on-field success, which is always nice - any fan will be happy with a trophy. The Premiership 7s we won 2010, runners up 2011. We'll see about the Heineken Cup, knockout stages should be a realistic target.
And there's so much more, just surrounding the club, which makes it nice to be a fan at the moment. Firstly, the number of academy players in and around the first team squad. You'll have heard of Goode, Farrell, Saull, Short etc. but there are a hell of a lot of others there too. The South African is there, definitely, but I often feel it means people ignore the success of the Saracens Academy.
The coaching staff are also a good mixture of styles and backgrounds, which is why today's news is great - Venter is still there doing good without being allowed near the media. McCall is clearly a good guy, and Darren Campbell (ex GB sprinter) is on the team as a sprint consultant. Add a bunch of ex players like Paul Gustard, Farrell, Mosese Rauluni and Kevin Sorrell are still involved as well. After several years of constant changes, this is obviously nice for a fan.
And then there's Saracens TV. I don't know what other clubs have, but go on to the Saracens website and the amount of content available is astonishing. What's more, it gives a little insight into how the team has been built, since they do a lot of non-rugby activities which really bring them together. An example would be the recent friendly away to Toulon, where the squad was split up into small groups, flown to some surprise locations in Europe and told to make their own ways to Toulon. This was all filmed and is on the website. Meaningless in the general scheme of things, but interesting and indicative of how the players are looked after. Clearly all players are expected to get on - I heard Andy Farrell once pulled Henson aside at training and asked him to name his fellow backs - and he couldn't. No surprises Henson departed quickly.
I don't know about how this is being funded, but hats off to whoever at Saracens is implementing these ideas. Hopefully more success should follow, but in the meantime I'm seeing so much positivity coming from Saracens it will be difficult for the rest of the country to hate as much as they have in recent years...
As a fan, there are a number of negatives. The fact we don't have the support base of towns like Northampton, Gloucester, etc. The fact we are known as Saffacens (rightly or wrongly). The fact we only have one player in the England world cup squad. The fact we don't have a proper home yet (even though I do just about remember trips to High Barnet as a littl'un).
But everything else is perfect. Recently, there's been on-field success, which is always nice - any fan will be happy with a trophy. The Premiership 7s we won 2010, runners up 2011. We'll see about the Heineken Cup, knockout stages should be a realistic target.
And there's so much more, just surrounding the club, which makes it nice to be a fan at the moment. Firstly, the number of academy players in and around the first team squad. You'll have heard of Goode, Farrell, Saull, Short etc. but there are a hell of a lot of others there too. The South African is there, definitely, but I often feel it means people ignore the success of the Saracens Academy.
The coaching staff are also a good mixture of styles and backgrounds, which is why today's news is great - Venter is still there doing good without being allowed near the media. McCall is clearly a good guy, and Darren Campbell (ex GB sprinter) is on the team as a sprint consultant. Add a bunch of ex players like Paul Gustard, Farrell, Mosese Rauluni and Kevin Sorrell are still involved as well. After several years of constant changes, this is obviously nice for a fan.
And then there's Saracens TV. I don't know what other clubs have, but go on to the Saracens website and the amount of content available is astonishing. What's more, it gives a little insight into how the team has been built, since they do a lot of non-rugby activities which really bring them together. An example would be the recent friendly away to Toulon, where the squad was split up into small groups, flown to some surprise locations in Europe and told to make their own ways to Toulon. This was all filmed and is on the website. Meaningless in the general scheme of things, but interesting and indicative of how the players are looked after. Clearly all players are expected to get on - I heard Andy Farrell once pulled Henson aside at training and asked him to name his fellow backs - and he couldn't. No surprises Henson departed quickly.
I don't know about how this is being funded, but hats off to whoever at Saracens is implementing these ideas. Hopefully more success should follow, but in the meantime I'm seeing so much positivity coming from Saracens it will be difficult for the rest of the country to hate as much as they have in recent years...
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I agree - it's hard to argue with the results, and Sarries do a lot for the players through trips (Beer festival in Munich, training in Miami) and apparently they do a lot to prepare the players for their careers after rugby (apparently one of the reasons Charlie Hodgson chose Sarries over France/any other club is because of their post-rugby help)
Watched a few clips of preseason training on Sarries TV and really enjoyed it - and that "We drop you off somewhere in Europe and you make your own way to Toulon" thing was genius
They can play good rugby when they want to, and have a lot of players I really like on the cards: If they ditched that bloody song (and Steve Borthwick
) I think I could actually like them :lol:
Watched a few clips of preseason training on Sarries TV and really enjoyed it - and that "We drop you off somewhere in Europe and you make your own way to Toulon" thing was genius
They can play good rugby when they want to, and have a lot of players I really like on the cards: If they ditched that bloody song (and Steve Borthwick
) I think I could actually like them :lol:Similar threads
