Championship Rugby

[ExAviator]

Sarries are fielding a pretty strong side that would beat most, if not all, premiership teams - but could still stumble against Doncaster this afternoon!

Saracens Men team to play Doncaster Knights:

15 Elliott Obatoyinbo

14 Alex Lewington

13 Elliot Daly

12 Nick Tompkins

11 Sean Maitland

10 Owen Farrell (c)

9 Aled Davies

1 Mako Vunipola

2 Jamie George

3 Vincent Koch

4 Maro Itoje

5 Tim Swinson

6 Michael Rhodes

7 Sean Reffell

8 Billy Vunipola



Replacements:

16 Tom Woolstencroft

17 Richard Barrington

18 Alec Clarey

19 Callum Hunter-Hill

20 Andy Christie

21 Tom Whiteley

22 Manu Vunipola

23 Dom Morris

[Mellsblue]

Big game for Sarries away at Doncaster today. Lose and I’d say their chances of promotion are as good as over.

Eh. They'd take Ealing's automatic spot as the 14th team regardless, so it's Ealing that should be worried.

Puja

Is the 14 team plan confirmed? Regardless, if Doncaster beat Sarries today then Sarries have lost two and Doncaster and Ealing are both unbeaten. They’ll sit fourth in the table five points behind third placed Pirates albeit with a game in hand, ie they’ll sit 16th in the country.

[Puja]

Big game for Sarries away at Doncaster today. Lose and I’d say their chances of promotion are as good as over.

Eh. They'd take Ealing's automatic spot as the 14th team regardless, so it's Ealing that should be worried.

Puja

Is the 14 team plan confirmed? Regardless, if Doncaster beat Sarries today then Sarries have lost two and Doncaster and Ealing are both unbeaten. They’ll sit fourth in the table five points behind third placed Pirates albeit with a game in hand, ie they’ll sit 16th in the country.

Not officially, but if Saracens somehow fail to get promoted, then the 14 team plan will be confirmed. There's no sequence of results on or off the field that will see them not in the Prem next season.

Puja

[Mellsblue]

Eh. They'd take Ealing's automatic spot as the 14th team regardless, so it's Ealing that should be worried.

Puja

Is the 14 team plan confirmed? Regardless, if Doncaster beat Sarries today then Sarries have lost two and Doncaster and Ealing are both unbeaten. They’ll sit fourth in the table five points behind third placed Pirates albeit with a game in hand, ie they’ll sit 16th in the country.

Not officially, but if Saracens somehow fail to get promoted, then the 14 team plan will be confirmed. There's no sequence of results on or off the field that will see them not in the Prem next season.

Puja

Is this fact or you surmising? Not that I disagree.

[Puja]

Is the 14 team plan confirmed? Regardless, if Doncaster beat Sarries today then Sarries have lost two and Doncaster and Ealing are both unbeaten. They’ll sit fourth in the table five points behind third placed Pirates albeit with a game in hand, ie they’ll sit 16th in the country.

Not officially, but if Saracens somehow fail to get promoted, then the 14 team plan will be confirmed. There's no sequence of results on or off the field that will see them not in the Prem next season.

Puja

Is this fact or you surmising? Not that I disagree.

Surmising. You think there's any situation in which PRL will leave them in the Champ?

Puja

[Mellsblue]

Not officially, but if Saracens somehow fail to get promoted, then the 14 team plan will be confirmed. There's no sequence of results on or off the field that will see them not in the Prem next season.

Puja

Is this fact or you surmising? Not that I disagree.

Surmising. You think there's any situation in which PRL will leave them in the Champ?

Puja

Like I said, I don’t disagree with you but I’ll stick with the rules as they stand when posting and as it stands they’re in deep doo doo if the lose today, which they almost certainly won’t.

[Banquo]

probably moot

[fivepointer]

The BIG one this Sunday. Man for man its a no contest, surely?

Saracens: Obatoyinbo; Lewington, Daly, Tompkins, Maitland; Farrell (capt), Davies; Mako Vunipola, George, Koch, Itoje, Swinson, Wray, Reffell, B Vunipola

Replacements: Woolstencroft, Barrington, Clarey, Kpoku, Christie, Whiteley, Manu Vunipola, Taylor

Ealing: Johnston; Kernohan, Bodilly, Howard, Cordy-Redden; Willis, Hampson; Whyte, Malton, Millar Mills, Linsell, Cannon, Murphy, Uzokwe, Smid (capt)

Replacements: van Vuuren, Davis, Thiede, Casson, Thompson, Buckley, Burns, Daniels

[Digby]

That's pretty much on the verge of the ref calling off the game for being such a mismatch.

At kids level if you were reffing this game you'd be wanting a few players swapped. Obviously Farrell should be sitting out a ban, but whatever

[Gloskarlos]

Craig Maxwell-Keys is the man in the middle, apologies for not watching enough (any in fact) champ rugby - but are prem refs often found in these kind of matches? genuine question.

[fivepointer]

48-20 to Saracens.

[Mellsblue]

The playoff final starts this weekend..... and Ealing don’t meet the msc......

[fivepointer]

...msc?? minimum standards criterion?

they've got money behind them, a decent enough side (too good for Champ but not fit for the Prem) but no fans and a ground that can house, what,3,000 tops?

[Puja]

The playoff final starts this weekend..... and Ealing don’t meet the msc......

Have they just announced that? Just in case they hadn't stacked the deck far enough in Saracens' favour, it's now literally impossible for them not to get promoted.

Puja

[Mellsblue]

Ealing have the right of appeal. Supposedly, they have an agreement with QPR but nothing in writing to present to the RFU.....

[Puja]

As it turns out, the appeal is a moot point. 0-60 is a relatively convincing first leg score.

Puja

[FKAS]

Sarries Lions will want pre tour game time so will be desperate to play in the next leg only making it worse for Ealing as well.

[fivepointer]

Horrible, chastening result for Ealing, but not that unexpected. That first up defeat to the Pirates seems like a very long time ago for Saracens.

[Scrumhead]

More of a reality check TBH.

Obviously Sarries being in the Championship with that squad is an anomaly (I’m not questioning why they are there BTW), but Newcastle strolled the Championship the season before and I’ve no doubt Worcester would have done the same next season if they had been relegated.

This result only strengthens the case for ringfencing IMO.

[Digby]

or proves you don't need to worry about ring fencing because the Prem team always bounces back, or proves more money should be taken from Prem clubs and given to Championship clubs, or proves....

[Mellsblue]

I think it proves that we’ve ringfenced by starving the Champ of money and that one of the best club teams in the world will likely give the the 14th best team in England a thumping 9 times out 10.

[Digby]

but for now if a club can overcome that there's still the chance for them to dream, and the first thing is for there to be a chance, and then we can consider what if anything can be done about how likely that chance is. maybe we just carry on as is, and if ever if any of the precious little darlings in the GP are overly distraught by this they should feel free to quit

[Mellsblue]

Sarries, with a disappointing 57 v 15 win, clinch promotion.

[Danno]

Yay.

[Mellsblue]

London Scottish play their first match in 77 weeks today.