Saracens remain hopeful their injured captain, Brad Barritt, could yet be fit for the Premiership final against Exeter at Twickenham on Saturday. It had been widely assumed Barritt’s hamstring would rule him out but Saracens’ director of rugby, Mark McCall, said there was still a chance of the influential centre being involved.
Barritt was forced off in the first half of the semi-final win against Gloucester but his hamstring problem is not as bad as initially feared. “His scan on Monday was a little bit better than we thought it would be,” McCall said.
“He does have a chance and we want to give him until the end of the week. He’ll be tested on Thursday to see where he’s at and we might have to wait until we warm up on Saturday to see how it is.”
Leicester’s head coach, Geordan Murphy, has been banned from matchday coaching duties for his club’s first three games of next season, ordered to pay £1,500 to charity and instructed to write an open letter of apology to his players for verbally abusing a match official following the Tigers’ final league fixture against Bath this month.