The final Premiership match of the decade was fought out between the two teams who have come to dominate it, even if this time it was top against bottom. Exeter made nothing of Saracens’ salary cap breaches that cost the champions 35 points, concentrating on themselves rather than simmering with resentment and they gave a masterclass in how to overcome the club of the 2010s.
Saracens dominated the first half despite playing into the wind but trailed 7-0 at the interval. Owen Farrell missed two penalties that by his standard were gimmes and the Chiefs, for the most part, kept their heads as they defended their line.
Jack Nowell won a penalty after clamping on to the ball when Billy Vunipola was tackled, Stuart Hogg hauled down Ben Spencer after Will Skelton had broken the line and the half ended with Jamie George driven over the line following a maul but unable to ground the ball because Exeter’s Joe Simmonds had managed to get his body in the way.
It was typical of the focus Exeter armed themselves with against the team that defeated them in the last two Premiership finals having since been found to have breached salary cap regulations. The Chiefs’ chairman and chief executive Tony Rowe was the most vocal of Sarries’ critics, saying they should have been relegated rather than docked 35 points, but he did not mention the champions or the affair in his programme notes.
If there was no seasonal goodwill from the hosts, the crowd’s reception for Saracens was more respectful than hostile. They were more concerned with backing their team, who had the chance to go back to the top of the table, than mocking opponents who, for once, were not title rivals.
Exeter and Saracens have much in common, the cream of the Premiership who are some way ahead of the rest. They place a focus on community and developing young, England qualified players to the benefit of the national side and have made their grounds focal points. One, though, has been found not to have played by the rules. None the less it was not revenge that drove Exeter on but ruthlessness. Saracens started brightly but after Billy Vunipola dropped an unsympathetic pass from Jackson Wray near the Exeter line, Farrell threw the ball behind Max Malins. As the full-back fumbled around, Nic White kicked the ball towards the visitors’ 22 and with the last line of defence elsewhere won the race to it.
Exeter survived the 10 minutes which the prop Harry Williams spent in the sin-bin for entering a maul from the side, escaped the consequences of Ollie Devoto’s no-arms tackle and Ian Whitten’s kicking of the ball out of a ruck with Farrell putting both penalties to the right of the posts, and showed how to turn pressure into points 11 minutes after the restart when they drove a lineout and Jacques Vermeulen found his way over the line.
Saracens had not failed to score a point in the Premiership since the beginning of the decade when they were blanked by Wasps, but they could find nothing to work against opponents who had them worked out. The Simmonds brothers prevented Richard Wigglesworth from cashing in on Farrell’s chip to the line and typical of the game was the assault on the Exeter line that Sarries made on the hour.
They took play through phases, rumbling through the forwards and moving the ball wide, but they got nowhere and even when Ben Earl and Elliot Daly combined on the right to get into the Exeter 22, Joe Simmonds thwarted the move.
Saracens were still going nowhere when White and Duncan Taylor had a spat on the touchline which other players joined in. One was Williams, the prop who had been replaced 10 minutes earlier. He was sent off from the bench for a second yellow card. After the second of two penalty line-out drives Saracens were awarded a penalty try when Dave Ewers entered the maul from the side and was sent to the sin-bin.
Saracens secured the point their pressure merited, but they remain 18 points from safety with six rounds without their Six Nations players to be negotiated as they battle on unfamiliar territory.