NPR

He won’t thank me for revealing this , but it is now 41 years since I first met the great Irish fly half, Tony Ward, at a lunch in his honour in London. We must have fooled the barman because clearly we were well underage, but I have always enjoyed his company.

Last week in a column for the Irish Independent, Ward praised Saracens for many aspects of their performance but then added a rider. “I hate everything that Saracens stand for,” he roared. The idea that Saracens deserve hate from any quarter would be almost actionable were it not for the fact that Ward is absolutely entitled to his opinion.

However, from someone who has seen so much and exhibited such wisdom, it is incredible that he could know so little about Saracens for his opinion to dissolve into hatred. Hatred? And yet he is far from alone.

Naturally, a certain cynicism may creep when you read from afar that Saracens were accused of infringing the salary cap in the Premiership, and also feel glee at the fate of an opponent you have always found near-impossible to beat.

But that is only about one-quarter of the story. What so many miss on the salary cap issue, is the judgement. Lord Myners, who conducted the hearing, concluded that the salary cap transgression was “not deliberate or intentional.”


What no one else realised was the extent of the bitterness and score-settling of representatives of other Premiership clubs who then sat in judgement. Saracens were subjected to a scatter-gun barrage of punishments. There was no by-law which could end in their relegation. But they were relegated.

As for hating what they stand for, that really is to speak in total ignorance. Saracens are a great rugby club, they have broken the old guard of city clubs and made their own path. They stand for everything that is good in rugby, technically and in the heart and soul, yet they have widened their brief spectacularly. They have a vast social and a charitable conscience — and they put their money where their mouths are — which is light years ahead of any other rugby institution.

Some examples for Ward. Thanks to Nigel Wray, the owner, and the Saracens Sport Foundation, the club were instrumental recently in the opening of Saracens High School in the north London area of Barnet in which the club is located where the standard of secondary education, frankly, was poor and horribly under-funded. The whole thing has been a staggering success. The last time they revealed their attendance records we found that the pupils at 97 per cent and the staff at 98 cent came in so far above inner-city schools around the country that it was unbelievable.

The government recently approached the club pointing out that because of their success with the secondary school, it meant that local junior schools were inundated with parents moving into the area. Accordingly, Saracens and the local authority joined together and shortly, the new Saracens Primary School will be born.

Saracens run clubs for six categories of disabled people of all ages, among them four separate clubs for autistic children — all paid for by the club’s foundation. They also provide respite care for parents and carers; when the children are out on Allianz Park engaging in play and sports, the parents are allowed to share all the facilities that Saracens have — medical, physiotherapy and mental health. They also run sessions for the older people of the locality.

Saracens take in inmates from the local young offenders prisons. They establish rugby programmes to foster fitness and discipline, the rate of
re-offending of those who have attended the programmes is very low and many have stayed in rugby to play following release. Now they are expanding to take young people from a second prison.

You can count nine other charitable activities with which they are involved, and three other sports they help to fund. The full outreach of their programmes is vast. There are eight clubs bearing the Saracens name and logo across the world, taking advantage of their lead, and resources.

Frankly, the unassuming Wray is the sort of man in whose company Ward, and so many others, would revel.

And their rugby? They have the finest academy system in the sport. They are based squarely on developing their own. Their academy provided the core of the England team at the World Cup in Japan, and of the previous Lions team, and will provide the same service for England and the Lions this season, barring injury.

They also have another outstanding generation coming through, led by Max Malins and Ben Earl, both on spectacular form in recent appearances for Bristol; like other Saracens they have moved on in one-season deals so that they can maintain their progress, but can then return when Saracens are promoted again. The club spirit is colossal, tangible. And if you are searching for any element of arrogance or conceit, you will fail.

Ward would agree that the iron resolution and togetherness of the team last week completely destroyed any idea that their morale has been affected by their relegation and all the recent events. Perhaps Richard Wigglesworth, the scrum half, spoke for the whole club. “Maybe we’ve got to do it the hard way,” he said. “Maybe that would prove that what we’ve built is true.”

The problem, of course, is that reality always gets in the way when there is a heavy defeat to try to explain away.

Kawazaki wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 12:39 pm An article that provides some balance to all the negative stuff written about Saracens.

SaintK wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:30 pm

Kawazaki wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 12:39 pm An article that provides some balance to all the negative stuff written about Saracens.

Whilst I'm not quite as vitriolic about or anti Sarries as most, this sort of hagiographical piece doesn't make them any less guilty. particularly as written by a known supporter like Jones.
As for the work in the local community? At a guess most of the Premiership clubs will do that to greater or lesser extent. Even my tiny little club runs a special needs/mixed ability section

Kawazaki wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 3:44 pm

SaintK wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:30 pm

Kawazaki wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 12:39 pm An article that provides some balance to all the negative stuff written about Saracens.

Whilst I'm not quite as vitriolic about or anti Sarries as most, this sort of hagiographical piece doesn't make them any less guilty. particularly as written by a known supporter like Jones.
As for the work in the local community? At a guess most of the Premiership clubs will do that to greater or lesser extent. Even my tiny little club runs a special needs/mixed ability section

As I said, there's enough negative about them repeated over and over - just a different view of them. It's not meant in mitigation.

How many other rugby clubs have opened schools for example?

SaintK wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 4:10 pm

Kawazaki wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 3:44 pm

SaintK wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:30 pm
Whilst I'm not quite as vitriolic about or anti Sarries as most, this sort of hagiographical piece doesn't make them any less guilty. particularly as written by a known supporter like Jones.
As for the work in the local community? At a guess most of the Premiership clubs will do that to greater or lesser extent. Even my tiny little club runs a special needs/mixed ability section

As I said, there's enough negative about them repeated over and over - just a different view of them. It's not meant in mitigation.

How many other rugby clubs have opened schools for example?

As it's been written by known suporter of Sarries through their troubles it unfortunately comes over as mitigation somewhat.
I certainly don't doubt the positive affect of their community activities. In fact I'm fully aware of them as I belong to a club in their catchment area and our last head coach was from their Community Rugby Section.

On another note, Cameron Boon makes his first starting appearance for them later today. He's from my club and I can recall him having to duck under the door frame in the clubhouse at 16 years old. Thankfully he's filled out somewhat now

Stephen Jones is one of the only journalists to have accepted Saracens wrong doing but equally supports and promotes the way they improve society.

I am a Chiefs supporter and cannot share the vitriol aimed at Sarries. I shared a brief conversation with Nigel Wray maybe five years ago and found him to be quite a modest guy who has actually done so much for the club and the community around them. He resigned as Chairman of the club for the good of the club but ensured his family continue their financial support.

The main breach of the cap was his help and support to help players when they leave the game. Perhaps the other clubs should look to do the same and if not through direct investment then through quality job training and placement.

If other owners worked as he did the the game and their surrounding would be all the better for it.

The main breach of the cap was his help and support to help players when they leave the game.

The main breach of the cap was his building a squad with funds that breached the salary cap, a squad that no other club could hope to match while obeying the leagues rules. This gave Saracens a massively unfair competitive advantage.

Exeter are dead right, Saracens should lose tainted titles
Chiefs have a chance of adding a memorable double in the coming weeks

The finals of both the 2019-20 Champions Cup and Premiership take place over the next two Saturdays and for the first time in seven seasons neither will feature Saracens. Instead, for the first time, Exeter will contest the pair of them. Both competitions are better off for that.

In the last six seasons, Saracens reached five Premiership finals, winning four of them, and four Champions Cup finals, winning three of them. But all those achievements are stained.

Granted, Lord Myners’s report into Saracens’ salary cap indiscretions – and Premiership Rugby’s ensuing fine of almost €6 million and deductions of 105 points in total – were for breaches covering the 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons, because that’s all that could be investigated.

In this time Saracens won two Premiership titles and two European Champions Cups. Last season, after beating Clermont in the 2017 European final and Exeter in the 2018 Premiership decider, they repeated their double of 2016 when defeating Exeter and Leinster in the two finals.

As this was the third time Exeter lost a final to a club who were found guilty of financial doping, or cheating, in the last four seasons, the Chiefs were entitled more than most to feel aggrieved, and they are.

This much is clear from a new book, due out next month, by the Guardian’s rugby correspondent Robert Kitson, entitled: The Exe Men: The Extraordinary Rise of Exeter Chiefs. Extracts from the book were published in The Observer on Sunday and sympathy in the west country for Saracens, who will spend next season in the Championship, is in short supply.

Exeter’s long-serving director of rugby Rob Baxter, who spent hours studying spread sheets so as to ensure the Chiefs stayed within the salary cap, notes that even breaches in the cases of a select few players in turn helped them keep all their other players.

In all of this Baxter is not alone in accepting that Saracens do many things well. They are a superbly coached side, have a brilliant academy system, have developed a strong and winning culture and do many fine things within their local community.

But ultimately Saracens accumulated trophies by assembling a squad no other club could afford, including Exeter, who by comparison are an honestly run club, and the only profit-making one in last season’s Premiership.

What is particularly galling for Baxter is that Saracens, who vowed to fight the initial fine and deduction, have never so much as hinted at an apology.

Indeed, a mass brawl between players from both sides when they met at Sandy Park last December was, according to Exeter players, instigated by a comment from Billy Vunipola to the home side’s scrumhalf Nic White along the lines of: ‘Unlucky, you haven’t got a Premiership winner’s medal.”

Far from being apologetic in any way, this reflects a mentality within Saracens which, as Baxter put it, demonstrated they were quite happy to cheat in order to win titles and didn’t mind rubbing it in either.

There are also many monetary implications, as the Exeter flanker Don Armand highlights. Other players were being paid less than their Saracens counterparts, which in turn gave the latter far more financial security, especially with off-field property investments to ease them into retirement.

Players in clubs such as Exeter may have been released so the squad came within the salary cap. Armand also points out that having titles on a player’s CV makes them more valuable commodities if they do move on, witness lucrative deals some departed Saracens players have secured in France.

All those trophies Saracens accumulated also helped earn their players more international recognition, and as Armand also points out, none of these career-changing events can ever be righted.

There are also the trophies which the coaches and backroom staff missed out on, and this stretches down throughout every employee and person involved in an entire professional organisation, not to mention the celebrations potentially denied the Exeter spectators, and others, who bought season tickets or match tickets or travelled to away games.

Outside of financial reward players play rugby to win matches and win trophies. More than anything, that’s what defines their careers. Unlike their amateur predecessors, they make unbelievable sacrifices in their pursuit of wins and trophies. Unlike their amateur predecessors, they hardly ever drink, save for end-of-season parties. Then, admittedly, no less than their amateur predecessors, understandably they do their damndest to make up for it.

For a very select few, if those end-of-season parties are in the immediate aftermath of securing a trophy, then the all day Sunday piss-ups are even more cherished. It makes all those punishing pre-seasons, all those dreary, wet, cold Monday mornings, and all those injury rehabilitation programmes, even more rewarding.

If a squad is cheated of them, they can never get those prized memories back. And in such a transitional entity as professional sport, no two finales to a season are ever made up of exactly the same personnel.

Among rival chairmen, Exeter’s Tony Rowe, has been the most vociferous of Saracens’ critics. He doesn’t deny that Saracens deserved to win last season’s final, but states that his club lost to a superior team which Exeter couldn’t afford because they adhered to the salary cap.

Rowe also notes that his Saracens counterpart, Nigel Wray, cannot have been the only individual within that club who knew what was going on. Frankly, it’s unbelievable.

There should forever be an asterisk beside Saracens’ Premiership title wins of 2017-18 and 2018-19. In fact, on Wikipedia’s page on the Premiership there are with the accompanying note: *Saracens were found to have breached salary cap regulations during denoted season.

Rowe still believes the Premiership should go further. Saracens were proven to have cheated and therefore those titles should be removed from their name. Rowe is not saying that Exeter would have won them, or even want them. But Saracens shouldn’t have them either. He’s right.

By extension, there’s also a cloud over Saracens’ three Champions Cup titles. Of course they deserved to beat Clermont Auvergne in the 2017 final, as they’d done against Racing the previous year, and they were also worthy winners against Leinster in the 2019 final and 2020 quarter-final.

Saracens would not have progressed into the Champions Cup for the last three seasons had their cheating been proven sooner.

That sticks in the craw too.

PornDog wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 9:09 am

Exeter are dead right, Saracens should lose tainted titles
Chiefs have a chance of adding a memorable double in the coming weeks

The finals of both the 2019-20 Champions Cup and Premiership take place over the next two Saturdays and for the first time in seven seasons neither will feature Saracens. Instead, for the first time, Exeter will contest the pair of them. Both competitions are better off for that.

In the last six seasons, Saracens reached five Premiership finals, winning four of them, and four Champions Cup finals, winning three of them. But all those achievements are stained.

Granted, Lord Myners’s report into Saracens’ salary cap indiscretions – and Premiership Rugby’s ensuing fine of almost €6 million and deductions of 105 points in total – were for breaches covering the 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons, because that’s all that could be investigated.

In this time Saracens won two Premiership titles and two European Champions Cups. Last season, after beating Clermont in the 2017 European final and Exeter in the 2018 Premiership decider, they repeated their double of 2016 when defeating Exeter and Leinster in the two finals.

As this was the third time Exeter lost a final to a club who were found guilty of financial doping, or cheating, in the last four seasons, the Chiefs were entitled more than most to feel aggrieved, and they are.

This much is clear from a new book, due out next month, by the Guardian’s rugby correspondent Robert Kitson, entitled: The Exe Men: The Extraordinary Rise of Exeter Chiefs. Extracts from the book were published in The Observer on Sunday and sympathy in the west country for Saracens, who will spend next season in the Championship, is in short supply.

Exeter’s long-serving director of rugby Rob Baxter, who spent hours studying spread sheets so as to ensure the Chiefs stayed within the salary cap, notes that even breaches in the cases of a select few players in turn helped them keep all their other players.

In all of this Baxter is not alone in accepting that Saracens do many things well. They are a superbly coached side, have a brilliant academy system, have developed a strong and winning culture and do many fine things within their local community.

But ultimately Saracens accumulated trophies by assembling a squad no other club could afford, including Exeter, who by comparison are an honestly run club, and the only profit-making one in last season’s Premiership.

What is particularly galling for Baxter is that Saracens, who vowed to fight the initial fine and deduction, have never so much as hinted at an apology.

Indeed, a mass brawl between players from both sides when they met at Sandy Park last December was, according to Exeter players, instigated by a comment from Billy Vunipola to the home side’s scrumhalf Nic White along the lines of: ‘Unlucky, you haven’t got a Premiership winner’s medal.”

Far from being apologetic in any way, this reflects a mentality within Saracens which, as Baxter put it, demonstrated they were quite happy to cheat in order to win titles and didn’t mind rubbing it in either.

There are also many monetary implications, as the Exeter flanker Don Armand highlights. Other players were being paid less than their Saracens counterparts, which in turn gave the latter far more financial security, especially with off-field property investments to ease them into retirement.

Players in clubs such as Exeter may have been released so the squad came within the salary cap. Armand also points out that having titles on a player’s CV makes them more valuable commodities if they do move on, witness lucrative deals some departed Saracens players have secured in France.

All those trophies Saracens accumulated also helped earn their players more international recognition, and as Armand also points out, none of these career-changing events can ever be righted.

There are also the trophies which the coaches and backroom staff missed out on, and this stretches down throughout every employee and person involved in an entire professional organisation, not to mention the celebrations potentially denied the Exeter spectators, and others, who bought season tickets or match tickets or travelled to away games.

Outside of financial reward players play rugby to win matches and win trophies. More than anything, that’s what defines their careers. Unlike their amateur predecessors, they make unbelievable sacrifices in their pursuit of wins and trophies. Unlike their amateur predecessors, they hardly ever drink, save for end-of-season parties. Then, admittedly, no less than their amateur predecessors, understandably they do their damndest to make up for it.

For a very select few, if those end-of-season parties are in the immediate aftermath of securing a trophy, then the all day Sunday piss-ups are even more cherished. It makes all those punishing pre-seasons, all those dreary, wet, cold Monday mornings, and all those injury rehabilitation programmes, even more rewarding.

If a squad is cheated of them, they can never get those prized memories back. And in such a transitional entity as professional sport, no two finales to a season are ever made up of exactly the same personnel.

Among rival chairmen, Exeter’s Tony Rowe, has been the most vociferous of Saracens’ critics. He doesn’t deny that Saracens deserved to win last season’s final, but states that his club lost to a superior team which Exeter couldn’t afford because they adhered to the salary cap.

Rowe also notes that his Saracens counterpart, Nigel Wray, cannot have been the only individual within that club who knew what was going on. Frankly, it’s unbelievable.

There should forever be an asterisk beside Saracens’ Premiership title wins of 2017-18 and 2018-19. In fact, on Wikipedia’s page on the Premiership there are with the accompanying note: *Saracens were found to have breached salary cap regulations during denoted season.

Rowe still believes the Premiership should go further. Saracens were proven to have cheated and therefore those titles should be removed from their name. Rowe is not saying that Exeter would have won them, or even want them. But Saracens shouldn’t have them either. He’s right.

By extension, there’s also a cloud over Saracens’ three Champions Cup titles. Of course they deserved to beat Clermont Auvergne in the 2017 final, as they’d done against Racing the previous year, and they were also worthy winners against Leinster in the 2019 final and 2020 quarter-final.

Saracens would not have progressed into the Champions Cup for the last three seasons had their cheating been proven sooner.

That sticks in the craw too.

SaintK wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:30 pm

Kawazaki wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 12:39 pm An article that provides some balance to all the negative stuff written about Saracens.

Whilst I'm not quite as vitriolic about or anti Sarries as most, this sort of hagiographical piece doesn't make them any less guilty. particularly as written by a known supporter like Jones.
As for the work in the local community? At a guess most of the Premiership clubs will do that to greater or lesser extent. Even my tiny little club runs a special needs/mixed ability section

PornDog wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 9:15 am

The main breach of the cap was his help and support to help players when they leave the game.

This is a true statement

The main breach of the cap was his building a squad with funds that breached the salary cap, a squad that no other club could hope to match while obeying the leagues rules. This gave Saracens a massively unfair competitive advantage.

This statement is also true.

ScarfaceClaw wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 12:57 pm How many times in that article did the Walrus blame NZ rugby, the Haka and the All Blacks for everything wrong in the world?

Ovals wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 1:14 pm

ScarfaceClaw wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 12:57 pm How many times in that article did the Walrus blame NZ rugby, the Haka and the All Blacks for everything wrong in the world?

And, your point is what ??

eldanielfire wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 11:03 am

SaintK wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:30 pm

Kawazaki wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 12:39 pm An article that provides some balance to all the negative stuff written about Saracens.

Whilst I'm not quite as vitriolic about or anti Sarries as most, this sort of hagiographical piece doesn't make them any less guilty. particularly as written by a known supporter like Jones.
As for the work in the local community? At a guess most of the Premiership clubs will do that to greater or lesser extent. Even my tiny little club runs a special needs/mixed ability section

It's weird. Remember that Podcast where Stephen Jones aggressively insisted to Lawrence Dallaglio that Saracens had done nothing wrong and LOL was like "I'm on the board of a Premiership club, I've read the report, they have blatantly cheated" but Jones still was like "I know better".

There's a few weird corners of Rugby who seem to admire or think what Saracens did was fine. House of Rugby/The Good, The Bad and the Rugby Podcast has been going on for ages "Well it wasn't the breaking of the salary cap that won them those trophies, it's the clubs good atmosphere and environment" as if you could take a squad from the national leagues to Saracens and produce the same results. It's a bizarre mental gymnastics.

Saracens cost other players their potential careers, earnings, memories. They cost other fans their golden moments. A lot of that is not replaceable nor forgivable.

ASMO wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 3:13 pm

eldanielfire wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 11:03 am

SaintK wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:30 pm
Whilst I'm not quite as vitriolic about or anti Sarries as most, this sort of hagiographical piece doesn't make them any less guilty. particularly as written by a known supporter like Jones.
As for the work in the local community? At a guess most of the Premiership clubs will do that to greater or lesser extent. Even my tiny little club runs a special needs/mixed ability section

It's weird. Remember that Podcast where Stephen Jones aggressively insisted to Lawrence Dallaglio that Saracens had done nothing wrong and LOL was like "I'm on the board of a Premiership club, I've read the report, they have blatantly cheated" but Jones still was like "I know better".

There's a few weird corners of Rugby who seem to admire or think what Saracens did was fine. House of Rugby/The Good, The Bad and the Rugby Podcast has been going on for ages "Well it wasn't the breaking of the salary cap that won them those trophies, it's the clubs good atmosphere and environment" as if you could take a squad from the national leagues to Saracens and produce the same results. It's a bizarre mental gymnastics.

Saracens cost other players their potential careers, earnings, memories. They cost other fans their golden moments. A lot of that is not replaceable nor forgivable.

I am afraid that is pure speculation, you cannot know that for sure.

Bottom line is, the game has decided the punishment they have meted out fits the crime, i just wish people would move the fuck on, Tony Rowe is just a bitter old man now and he is fast losing any moral high ground he had. If he is such a respecter or the rules, then respect the ruling by the game administrators and just get on with running your own club.

PornDog wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 9:09 am

Exeter are dead right, Saracens should lose tainted titles
Chiefs have a chance of adding a memorable double in the coming weeks

The finals of both the 2019-20 Champions Cup and Premiership take place over the next two Saturdays and for the first time in seven seasons neither will feature Saracens. Instead, for the first time, Exeter will contest the pair of them. Both competitions are better off for that.

In the last six seasons, Saracens reached five Premiership finals, winning four of them, and four Champions Cup finals, winning three of them. But all those achievements are stained.

Granted, Lord Myners’s report into Saracens’ salary cap indiscretions – and Premiership Rugby’s ensuing fine of almost €6 million and deductions of 105 points in total – were for breaches covering the 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons, because that’s all that could be investigated.

In this time Saracens won two Premiership titles and two European Champions Cups. Last season, after beating Clermont in the 2017 European final and Exeter in the 2018 Premiership decider, they repeated their double of 2016 when defeating Exeter and Leinster in the two finals.

As this was the third time Exeter lost a final to a club who were found guilty of financial doping, or cheating, in the last four seasons, the Chiefs were entitled more than most to feel aggrieved, and they are.

This much is clear from a new book, due out next month, by the Guardian’s rugby correspondent Robert Kitson, entitled: The Exe Men: The Extraordinary Rise of Exeter Chiefs. Extracts from the book were published in The Observer on Sunday and sympathy in the west country for Saracens, who will spend next season in the Championship, is in short supply.

Exeter’s long-serving director of rugby Rob Baxter, who spent hours studying spread sheets so as to ensure the Chiefs stayed within the salary cap, notes that even breaches in the cases of a select few players in turn helped them keep all their other players.

In all of this Baxter is not alone in accepting that Saracens do many things well. They are a superbly coached side, have a brilliant academy system, have developed a strong and winning culture and do many fine things within their local community.

But ultimately Saracens accumulated trophies by assembling a squad no other club could afford, including Exeter, who by comparison are an honestly run club, and the only profit-making one in last season’s Premiership.

What is particularly galling for Baxter is that Saracens, who vowed to fight the initial fine and deduction, have never so much as hinted at an apology.

Indeed, a mass brawl between players from both sides when they met at Sandy Park last December was, according to Exeter players, instigated by a comment from Billy Vunipola to the home side’s scrumhalf Nic White along the lines of: ‘Unlucky, you haven’t got a Premiership winner’s medal.”

Far from being apologetic in any way, this reflects a mentality within Saracens which, as Baxter put it, demonstrated they were quite happy to cheat in order to win titles and didn’t mind rubbing it in either.

There are also many monetary implications, as the Exeter flanker Don Armand highlights. Other players were being paid less than their Saracens counterparts, which in turn gave the latter far more financial security, especially with off-field property investments to ease them into retirement.

Players in clubs such as Exeter may have been released so the squad came within the salary cap. Armand also points out that having titles on a player’s CV makes them more valuable commodities if they do move on, witness lucrative deals some departed Saracens players have secured in France.

All those trophies Saracens accumulated also helped earn their players more international recognition, and as Armand also points out, none of these career-changing events can ever be righted.

There are also the trophies which the coaches and backroom staff missed out on, and this stretches down throughout every employee and person involved in an entire professional organisation, not to mention the celebrations potentially denied the Exeter spectators, and others, who bought season tickets or match tickets or travelled to away games.

Outside of financial reward players play rugby to win matches and win trophies. More than anything, that’s what defines their careers. Unlike their amateur predecessors, they make unbelievable sacrifices in their pursuit of wins and trophies. Unlike their amateur predecessors, they hardly ever drink, save for end-of-season parties. Then, admittedly, no less than their amateur predecessors, understandably they do their damndest to make up for it.

For a very select few, if those end-of-season parties are in the immediate aftermath of securing a trophy, then the all day Sunday piss-ups are even more cherished. It makes all those punishing pre-seasons, all those dreary, wet, cold Monday mornings, and all those injury rehabilitation programmes, even more rewarding.

If a squad is cheated of them, they can never get those prized memories back. And in such a transitional entity as professional sport, no two finales to a season are ever made up of exactly the same personnel.

Among rival chairmen, Exeter’s Tony Rowe, has been the most vociferous of Saracens’ critics. He doesn’t deny that Saracens deserved to win last season’s final, but states that his club lost to a superior team which Exeter couldn’t afford because they adhered to the salary cap.

Rowe also notes that his Saracens counterpart, Nigel Wray, cannot have been the only individual within that club who knew what was going on. Frankly, it’s unbelievable.

There should forever be an asterisk beside Saracens’ Premiership title wins of 2017-18 and 2018-19. In fact, on Wikipedia’s page on the Premiership there are with the accompanying note: *Saracens were found to have breached salary cap regulations during denoted season.

Rowe still believes the Premiership should go further. Saracens were proven to have cheated and therefore those titles should be removed from their name. Rowe is not saying that Exeter would have won them, or even want them. But Saracens shouldn’t have them either. He’s right.

By extension, there’s also a cloud over Saracens’ three Champions Cup titles. Of course they deserved to beat Clermont Auvergne in the 2017 final, as they’d done against Racing the previous year, and they were also worthy winners against Leinster in the 2019 final and 2020 quarter-final.

Saracens would not have progressed into the Champions Cup for the last three seasons had their cheating been proven sooner.

That sticks in the craw too.

Kawazaki wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 4:45 pm

Spoiler

Show

PornDog wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 9:09 am

Exeter are dead right, Saracens should lose tainted titles
Chiefs have a chance of adding a memorable double in the coming weeks

The finals of both the 2019-20 Champions Cup and Premiership take place over the next two Saturdays and for the first time in seven seasons neither will feature Saracens. Instead, for the first time, Exeter will contest the pair of them. Both competitions are better off for that.

In the last six seasons, Saracens reached five Premiership finals, winning four of them, and four Champions Cup finals, winning three of them. But all those achievements are stained.

Granted, Lord Myners’s report into Saracens’ salary cap indiscretions – and Premiership Rugby’s ensuing fine of almost €6 million and deductions of 105 points in total – were for breaches covering the 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons, because that’s all that could be investigated.

In this time Saracens won two Premiership titles and two European Champions Cups. Last season, after beating Clermont in the 2017 European final and Exeter in the 2018 Premiership decider, they repeated their double of 2016 when defeating Exeter and Leinster in the two finals.

As this was the third time Exeter lost a final to a club who were found guilty of financial doping, or cheating, in the last four seasons, the Chiefs were entitled more than most to feel aggrieved, and they are.

This much is clear from a new book, due out next month, by the Guardian’s rugby correspondent Robert Kitson, entitled: The Exe Men: The Extraordinary Rise of Exeter Chiefs. Extracts from the book were published in The Observer on Sunday and sympathy in the west country for Saracens, who will spend next season in the Championship, is in short supply.

Exeter’s long-serving director of rugby Rob Baxter, who spent hours studying spread sheets so as to ensure the Chiefs stayed within the salary cap, notes that even breaches in the cases of a select few players in turn helped them keep all their other players.

In all of this Baxter is not alone in accepting that Saracens do many things well. They are a superbly coached side, have a brilliant academy system, have developed a strong and winning culture and do many fine things within their local community.

But ultimately Saracens accumulated trophies by assembling a squad no other club could afford, including Exeter, who by comparison are an honestly run club, and the only profit-making one in last season’s Premiership.

What is particularly galling for Baxter is that Saracens, who vowed to fight the initial fine and deduction, have never so much as hinted at an apology.

Indeed, a mass brawl between players from both sides when they met at Sandy Park last December was, according to Exeter players, instigated by a comment from Billy Vunipola to the home side’s scrumhalf Nic White along the lines of: ‘Unlucky, you haven’t got a Premiership winner’s medal.”

Far from being apologetic in any way, this reflects a mentality within Saracens which, as Baxter put it, demonstrated they were quite happy to cheat in order to win titles and didn’t mind rubbing it in either.

There are also many monetary implications, as the Exeter flanker Don Armand highlights. Other players were being paid less than their Saracens counterparts, which in turn gave the latter far more financial security, especially with off-field property investments to ease them into retirement.

Players in clubs such as Exeter may have been released so the squad came within the salary cap. Armand also points out that having titles on a player’s CV makes them more valuable commodities if they do move on, witness lucrative deals some departed Saracens players have secured in France.

All those trophies Saracens accumulated also helped earn their players more international recognition, and as Armand also points out, none of these career-changing events can ever be righted.

There are also the trophies which the coaches and backroom staff missed out on, and this stretches down throughout every employee and person involved in an entire professional organisation, not to mention the celebrations potentially denied the Exeter spectators, and others, who bought season tickets or match tickets or travelled to away games.

Outside of financial reward players play rugby to win matches and win trophies. More than anything, that’s what defines their careers. Unlike their amateur predecessors, they make unbelievable sacrifices in their pursuit of wins and trophies. Unlike their amateur predecessors, they hardly ever drink, save for end-of-season parties. Then, admittedly, no less than their amateur predecessors, understandably they do their damndest to make up for it.

For a very select few, if those end-of-season parties are in the immediate aftermath of securing a trophy, then the all day Sunday piss-ups are even more cherished. It makes all those punishing pre-seasons, all those dreary, wet, cold Monday mornings, and all those injury rehabilitation programmes, even more rewarding.

If a squad is cheated of them, they can never get those prized memories back. And in such a transitional entity as professional sport, no two finales to a season are ever made up of exactly the same personnel.

Among rival chairmen, Exeter’s Tony Rowe, has been the most vociferous of Saracens’ critics. He doesn’t deny that Saracens deserved to win last season’s final, but states that his club lost to a superior team which Exeter couldn’t afford because they adhered to the salary cap.

Rowe also notes that his Saracens counterpart, Nigel Wray, cannot have been the only individual within that club who knew what was going on. Frankly, it’s unbelievable.

There should forever be an asterisk beside Saracens’ Premiership title wins of 2017-18 and 2018-19. In fact, on Wikipedia’s page on the Premiership there are with the accompanying note: *Saracens were found to have breached salary cap regulations during denoted season.

Rowe still believes the Premiership should go further. Saracens were proven to have cheated and therefore those titles should be removed from their name. Rowe is not saying that Exeter would have won them, or even want them. But Saracens shouldn’t have them either. He’s right.

By extension, there’s also a cloud over Saracens’ three Champions Cup titles. Of course they deserved to beat Clermont Auvergne in the 2017 final, as they’d done against Racing the previous year, and they were also worthy winners against Leinster in the 2019 final and 2020 quarter-final.

Saracens would not have progressed into the Champions Cup for the last three seasons had their cheating been proven sooner.

That sticks in the craw too.

Gerry Thornley?!

A bitter bogtrotter? Show some dignity ffs.

notfatcat wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 7:10 pm PRL wanted to forensically audit all clubs?

Uncle fester wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 7:57 pm Loathed them ever since the Munster game in Watford in 2012. Outnumbered by away fans at their own ground and constant music over the PA to drown them out. The least craic I've ever had at an away game.

Kawazaki wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 5:52 pm Ask yourself why the other clubs wouldn't agree to the same forensic audit they wanted Saracens to have. When we know it was only Saracens breaking the cap then you can have as much dignity and atonement as you like.

eldanielfire wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 10:42 am

Kawazaki wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 5:52 pm Ask yourself why the other clubs wouldn't agree to the same forensic audit they wanted Saracens to have. When we know it was only Saracens breaking the cap then you can have as much dignity and atonement as you like.

It's news PRL wanted to audit any other club, let alone they apparently don't want it.

Oh and there aren't being forensically audited because they haven't broken the cap in any serious way and covered it up and denied it like Saracens did.

Kawazaki wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 11:15 am which Saracens said they'd agree to as long as every other club's books were subject to the same forensic analysis.

PornDog wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 12:12 pm

Kawazaki wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 11:15 am which Saracens said they'd agree to as long as every other club's books were subject to the same forensic analysis.

Is there a sauce for this other than The Secret Saracens Backslappers Society's AGM notes?

Ovals wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 12:18 pm
Either way, the matter is settled and it's time to move on - they'll serve their punishment and, hopefully, come back as a strong team without breaking the rules.

Ovals wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 12:18 pm

PornDog wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 12:12 pm

Kawazaki wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 11:15 am which Saracens said they'd agree to as long as every other club's books were subject to the same forensic analysis.

Is there a sauce for this other than The Secret Saracens Backslappers Society's AGM notes?

My recollection was that Sarries just agreed to the extra points reduction - most likely because there was no point in having the hassle of a forensic analysis which would only have resulted in the same outcome - so would have been a pointless exercise. I don't remember Sarries agreeing to the analysis if the other clubs did the same.

Either way, the matter is settled and it's time to move on - they'll serve their punishment and, hopefully, come back as a strong team without breaking the rules.

sockwithaticket wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:50 pm

Ovals wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 12:18 pm

PornDog wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 12:12 pm

Is there a sauce for this other than The Secret Saracens Backslappers Society's AGM notes?

My recollection was that Sarries just agreed to the extra points reduction - most likely because there was no point in having the hassle of a forensic analysis which would only have resulted in the same outcome - so would have been a pointless exercise. I don't remember Sarries agreeing to the analysis if the other clubs did the same.

Either way, the matter is settled and it's time to move on - they'll serve their punishment and, hopefully, come back as a strong team without breaking the rules.

Or because they had more to hide. Even if that's not true, surely it would have been more worthwhile to undergo the investigation so that there's no room to say it.

I also don't recall it ever being reported that Sarries would agree if other clubs subjected themselves to it.

Looks like the Guardian printing those old quotes did the trick. It's re-ignited the conversation.

Kawazaki wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 11:15 am
You'd have to be spectacularly naive to think other clubs have not made illegal payments that contravene salary caps.