Sale v Saracens: Five takeaways as Noah Caluori ‘streets clear’ of rivals as Londoners ‘run riot’ against Alex Sanderson’s ‘just surviving’ Sharks
Following an 85-19 victory for Saracens over Sale Sharks in a one-sided PREM Rugby clash on Sunday, here’s our five takeaways from the match.
The top line
Noah Caluori returned to haunt Sale as Saracens kept alive slim hopes of a Gallagher PREM play-off spot with a record league win in the Salford sunshine.
The 19-year old, who announced himself with five tries against Sharks on his first league start in October, repeated the feat as the Londoners ran riot to move within nine points of the top four with five rounds to go.
He now has 17 in his debut season in English rugby’s top flight – seven more than anyone else. More remarkably, his two-game haul against Sale matches the best of the rest’s total across the entire season.
Saracens claimed 13 tries in all, scoring more points in a league game than ever before.
They are six-time English champions and despite being written off by many in a desperately inconsistent campaign – they have won only two of their previous eight in the PREM – refuse to give up on semi-final qualification.
“We all believe we can make it, we are treating every game like a final,” Caluori said. “We know how good we can be when we’re on form and at our best.
“We know we need to win every game so we are putting pressure on ourselves to do that.”
On a day to remember for the StoneX crew, further tries came from Rotimi Segun, Tom Willis, Rhys Carre, Fergus burke, Charlie Bracken, Nathan Michelow, Max Malins and Ben Earl.
Caluori rewriting the record books
In eight PREM matches Caluori has scored more tries than any player ever in a single campaign with the exception of Sam Simmonds, who amassed 21 for Exeter in 2020/21.
He is streets clear of the rest this term, with Tommy Freeman and Kalaveti Ravouvou closest back on 10. He has twice bagged five and also enjoyed a four-timer at home to Newcastle.
On his very first start Lions legend Sam Warburton described the Saracens wing as “undefendable”. Nothing has happened since to contradict that assessment.
At the CorpAcq Stadium he wore a shirt with his name spelled incorrectly on the back but nobody was in any doubt who he was as he scored two before half-time and a further three in the space of seven minutes midway through the second period.
“I just want to take every opportunity I get in a game,” the teen sensation said. “Credit to the boys, they put me in the right position to score and I was just there in support.
“Bit of luck, matching up the first five with this five, but I can’t really complain about that.”
Saracens rediscover their mojo
When these two clubs met in the 2023 Gallagher PREM final Saracens won but they had to come from behind to win a thriller at Allianz Stadium.
This could not have been more different. Saracens scored a try with every visit to the opposition 22 as Sale capitulated long before the end, shipping 13 tries and missing 43 tackles in what amounted to a record home defeat.
In two league games against Sarries this season the Cream of Manchester have conceded 150 points. Sale can point to a savage injury list, unmatched by any of their rivals.
They can also point to new recruits like Courtney Lawes, Nicky Smith, Christ Tshiunza and Alex Lozowski as reasons to be cheerful going forward.
Saracens prefer to live in the here and now. They know their final league game is at Exeter, who occupy the final play-off spot they covet. With nine points to make up on Chiefs they believe there is still all to play for.
It certainly looked that way in the way they performed. Willis and Carre are at the peak of their powers, Max Malins is back to his best and Caluori is, well, sensational. When you can afford to keep Owen Farrell on the bench for an hour things are going okay.
Battered Sharks face Monday post-mortem
In contrast to the visitors Sale’s performance was not at all what was demanded pre-match.
Team boss Alex Sanderson had been wound up by a gloating tweet posted by Saracens after the 65-14 result at StoneX in December; a video of a fish being dipped into a deep fat fryer.
“We got stuffed then got our faces rubbed in it from their side,” he said. “That still stings for me.”
He clearly expected more from his side this time, perhaps encouraged by their defiant first half display in Champions Cup defeat to Leinster in Dublin a week ago.
It did not pan out that way at all and by the end he was declaring himself “embarrassed”.
He told TNT Sports: “Clearly we haven’t found the buttons to press to motivate us for the back end of the season. When everything goes wrong it is genuinely down to mentality. When there is a little bit in every area then we haven’t pitched up with the right attitude, physically.
“It felt like we were just surviving. It felt like we were chasing shadows. Motivation, collective purpose fixes a lot of those wholesale problems. I have told them to go home and sleep on its, because we are in tomorrow and we will get some answers off them.”
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Skinstad not wrong
A week which began with Bob Skinstad expressing astonishment that PREM bosses have chosen to get rid of all jeopardy by removing promotion and relegation, ended with a game which proved his point.
Speaking to Planet Rugby, the former Springboks captain said he found it “extraordinary you don’t actually have to put your livelihood on the line and stay at the top of your game, as you do in France. I think they’ve failed domestic rugby in terms of that decision.”
Fast forward to the final match of Round 13 and a Sale Sharks side with nothing to play for due to being one of four clubs 25 points or more out of play-off contention.
Sharks, the only club to finish top-four in each of the last three seasons, were annihilated before half-time, conceding half a dozen tries and missing more than two dozen tackles.
“We just can’t seem to do anything right,” Sale forwards coach Dorian West complained, half an hour in, by which time visitors led 19-0. West had seen nothing yet.
At half-time Chris Ashton, the former England wing, was asked by TNT Sports host Craig Doyle whether Sale having nothing left to play for this season explained their no-show.
“As a professional player that should never be part of your thinking,” he said. “But clearly it is from some of these tackle attempts. 28 missed tackles is just inexcusable.”
That total reached 43 by the end, adding weight to Skinstad’s theory that a league with no promotion and relegation is a “bland marshmallow land”.
Consider this. Of the three other sides with nowt to play for, Newcastle lost 62-3, Gloucester 53-12 and Harlequins 48-15. It is really not a good look.
