Saracens have rejected claims of gamesmanship made by Glasgow’s head coach, Dave Rennie, before Saturday’s Champions Cup quarter-final between the sides. The Warriors have accused the English champions of deliberately seeking to provoke opponents and have urged the match referee, Nigel Owens, not to fall for the tactic.
The clubs have already had two feisty pool games this season, described as “very tasty encounters” by the Saracens captain Brad Barritt. Rennie, however, believes a pattern is emerging whenever they make a mistake or concede a penalty. He said: “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. It’s clearly a ploy. I’ve seen Saracens do it against every other side they play. We can’t be passive, but we’ve got to be smart around that sort of thing. We had a decision go our way [in the pool game at Scotstoun]; there was a bit of push and shove, Fraser Brown got penalised and they got three points out of it. I think Nigel’s pretty smart; he won’t get sucked into that.”
Mark McCall, however, has brushed aside Rennie’s view and also believes Scotland’s eventful Calcutta Cup draw against England this month will have no bearing on this supposed grudge match. “I’m not sure why he would say that,” the Saracens head coach said, referring to Rennie’s claim. “I’m not here to talk about them … I don’t really care what they say. We’ve got to do all the things we’ve done in these big matches over the last few years if we’re going to win.”
Saracens beat Glasgow 38-13 at the same stage in Europe’s premier competition in 2017 and McCall, with Owen Farrell, Maro Itoje and George Kruis all available having sat out last Saturday’s win over Harlequins, thinks his squad are well set for another strong finish to their season.
“The squad’s got a bit of a love affair with this competition,” he said. “We had to go through quite a lot before we won the title but I think this is our eighth quarter-final in a row, which is quite an achievement. While we felt the pain of getting knocked out at the quarter-final stage last year, we’ve put ourselves in a much better position this year by having a home quarter-final.”