Mark McCall hopes Saracens’ selection gamble pays off

Saracens are set to bring their big guns back for the return match with Munster next weekend after leaving Limerick with a losing bonus point.

Director of rugby Mark McCall, whose second string had lost its opening Heineken Champions Cup clash at Racing 92 last month in the absence of 17 players recovering from their World Cup contributions, made a similar gamble in round three when they left a host of star names behind in London for their appointment at Thomond Park.

The team that did travel will have left Ireland reasonably happy with a losing bonus point after a 10-3 defeat.

With home games to come, against Munster on Saturday and Racing in round six, either side of a trip to Wales to face winless Ospreys, Saracens sit in third in Pool 4 at the halfway stage — five points behind Munster and six behind leaders Racing.

McCall believes his side are still in the qualification mix.

“I think so, but it’s probably out of our hands to a degree. We need to win next week, but we do know Munster have got a tough game against Racing in round five. So there’s definitely hope, but next week’s huge for us. We’ve got to win next week.”

To that end, McCall could recall players such as England’s Owen Farrell, Jamie George, Mako Vunipola, Billy Vunipola, George Kruis, and Elliot Daly, as well as South African World Cup winner Vincent Koch.

“Yeah, we’ll rotate,” McCall said. “Some of the people who haven’t played today will play.

“Some of our non-internationals who have had a busy eight weeks or so, they’ll get some rest. We’ve just got to try and manage our group as well as we can.”

Munster head coach Johann van Graan does not have the playing resources to make such decisions, but he is hopeful of getting one frontline player back for the trip to Allianz Park.

Fly-halves Joey Carbery (ankle) and Tyler Bleyendaal (neck), as well as loosehead props Dave Kilcoyne (calf) and Jeremy Loughman (ankle) have all been sidelined of late, and van Graan said of their returns this Saturday: “Possibly one, but a few of our lads will still be injured for a while — but look, it’s pretty difficult to say.

“The injured guys trained Friday on their own and again over the weekend, so hopefully we will get at least one back, but a lot of our guys are still a few weeks off returning.

“So it’s important for our group to recover as quickly as they can over the next 48 hours and then start again next Monday morning — and it’s a massive challenge and a massive opportunity to enter the back yard of the European and Premiership champions.”

On Twitter...

What a weekend in Limerick but what stood out were the Munster fans. They were welcoming,friendly, helpful and generous in victory. You should be rightly very proud of them @Munsterrugby @MRSC16 pic.twitter.com/9ZDaq0pI26

— Saracens Supporters Association (@sarriessupport) December 8, 2019