A blustery morning kicked off with our visitors immediately imposing themselves, against the wind, with a powerful surge from their forwards, pushing Cambridge back to their 22. This consistent pressure was valiantly absorbed by a disciplined Cambridge front row who repeatedly won ball that subsequently broke down, mainly as a result of poor handling.

Saracens were unrelenting, yet another scrum finally resulted a quick blind side ball where Rory Sheppard hit the gas, Cambridge were in the opposition half for the first time, with try no. 1, planted. With our backs now settled, Saracens again thundered down the pitch only to be blocked by the ever present combination of Walker, Collicot & Dingwall, this time handling was sharp, sublime passing from Patrick Marmion, snapped to Marcus Jones, breaking free for Finlay Owens to floor it for try no. 2. Undeterred & sensing Cambridge’s desire for width, Saracens came straight back rucking, mauling & scrumming their way into the Cambridge half to score their first try. A highlight was seeing Sam “the missile” Buffery Turnell launch himself to win a line out ball for Marmion & Jones to link, split the field & free Toby Hackett to place try no. 3 with an overlap just before half time.        

Where the 1^st half had the Cambridge backs play their game of width; the 2^nd half was a different game altogether. Our 1^st & 2^nd row were called upon to dig deep and defend a pumped up Saracens attack helped by Luke Webb & Will Parker, ripping ball after ball to scrap their way back into the Saracen half. Our visitors were strong & regrettably suffered 2 casualties but still managed to push Cambridge back to their try line, yet again the ball was cleared by a quick thinking Ryan Headington and caught from a spiralling wind, backwards, by Owens who off loaded to Jones for try no. 4, with an overlap. Saracens came back, again scrummaging & mauling the length of the pitch to sink try no. 2 just before the final whistle. To quote the coach, “impossible to pick a man of the match, excellent all round effort”, he really was fairly impressed.

Cambridge Scorers:-

Rory Sheppard, Finlay Owens, Toby Hackett & Marcus Jones 

Cambridge Conversions:-

Ryan Headington, 3 conversions from 4 attempts.