‘Richard Hill is Saracens’

RICHARD HILL limped up the steps and into the Vicarage Road press room some distance behind his team-mates in order to speak to the media.

Saracens captain Neil De Kock and fly-half Glen Jackson were already sitting and waiting patiently for the post-match questions to begin when the aged flanker hobbled over and joined them.

“Worse thing is,” De Kock muttered, “he left (the dressing room) before us”.

Aching limbs and a mangled knee may be slowing down the 34-year-old World Cup winner off the pitch but they did not stop him from leading a marauding back-row demolition job of the Ospreys yesterday that will have the Munster brains trust working overtime in planning a response.

“He’s a phenomenon and we knew he would be,” Saracens director of rugby and former Munster head coach Alan Gaffney said. “We played the game pretty tight and didn’t get the ball too wide too early and allowed Hilly to get into the game.

“I don’t regard his knee as a gamble. I know what I’ve got with Hilly and we think we know how to manage him. He doesn’t do as much training as other people do, you’ve got to manage Richard Hill. He’s one of the great players of the modern era and what he brings to a game like that where you need experience you can’t quite equate and not only that but his presence on a rugby pitch. Richard Hill is Saracens.”

However much Hill is a part of Gaffney’s plans, there is little to disguise the fact that Munster still holds a strong place in the Australian’s heart.

“I had great times there,” he said, “been to two semis and a quarter-final, the great game against Wasps in the semis, beaten 13-12 by Toulouse in Toulouse — never quite worked out how that was a neutral venue — and the year Ronan (O’Gara) didn’t play with injury we got beaten by Biarritz in the quarters.

“So I enjoyed every bit of time I had in Munster, had an absolutely fantastic three years but they’ve come a long way forward since then, they’ve got a more rounded, balanced team and a lot more firepower in the midfield with Mafi and Tipoki.

“The young 9, Tomas O’Leary, came into the system while I was there and the young 15, Daragh Hurley, also. They’re both very good players and it was great to see Declan (Kidney) take the opportunity to give them the opportunity and they’ve both come through.”