Saracens have secured a place in the quarter-finals of the European Champions Cup after overcoming Ulster with a commanding 33-17 victory on Sunday.
The Londoners responded well from last week’s defeat to Harlequins with a bonus point win over Les Kiss’ Ulster side and apart from an intercepted try and a wonderful McCloskey break to engineer Luke Marshall crossing for the visitors in the first 10 minutes, the visitors never looked like they had the ability to come away with a win.
Saracens started the match perfectly, with an Ulster clearance failing to reach touch and they managed to put some phases together which resulted in a penalty that Owen Farrell had no trouble putting through the posts – although his overall kicking performance was poor as he missed four of his nine kicks at goal.
Ulster then showed some great attacking play as they worked an overlap to put McCloskey through a gap and then managed to keep the ball in hand and, on his first appearance back, Jared Payne threaded the ball through a gap and Luke Marshall pounced on the bouncing ball for a seven-point score.
Saracens responded through another Farrell penalty as the Ulster pack were no match in the scrum for the Saracens forwards – now being coached by Ian Peel, and they were pinged throughout the match. Ulster then kicked to the corner in the hope of creating a try rather than just three points.
This was not the case when Michael Rhodes, who had given that penalty away stole the ball from a poorly functioning line-out that never gave guaranteed clean ball for the entire match. Saracens soon showed their visitors how to get over the line from a maul as Billy Vunipola powered over with the rest of the Saracens pack joined by a few of the backs and the half-time score read 13-7.
In the second half, Saracens started to pull away as a wonderfully worked try came from Farrell slicing through the defense with a quick show and go, to then put Duncan Taylor in to score. Another score was constructed on vast amounts of pressure and big ball carriers, which ended with Maro Itoje crossing the line.
The final Saracens score was from replacement hooker, Schalk Brits. Saracens created a strong maul off of a line-out and after rumbling forward a few metres, Brits broke and used his quick feet to evade the defense and cross for the bonus point score. Ulster buckled under the pressure in the second half and after numerous penalties were conceded, Jerome Garces gave Craig Gilroy a yellow card.
The second half was not all doom and gloom for the Irish though as Ian Humphreys scored an intercepted try 10 minutes from time to give the away supporters something to cheer about.
This match saw some special performances from Man of the Match Owen Farrell and also Maro Itoje, Duncan Taylor, Billy and Mako Vunipola and Jamie George. Also, Paddy Jackson and Stuart McCloskey performed well for the visitors.
This result meant that Saracens were the first team to qualify for the quarter-finals and, because of the results on Pool 2, they also secured a home fixture. Now they go away to Toulouse whilst Ulster welcome Oyonnax with the hope of being one of the three runners-up to qualify to the knockout stages.
