The sold-out Sharks will take on the Saracens in Friday night’s Premiership Ruby tiebreaker at the AJ Bell Stadium, with the hosts viewing the game as a quarter-final as they struggle to stay in the play-offs. The Saracens got a big first-round win against the Os, 50-28, but were then defeated by Sale in the second game of the Saracens, 36-17. The Saracens took on the Wasps in the Rugby Premiership Cup on Tuesday night and had a chance to reach the semi-finals before travelling to Manchester on Friday night in the Gallagher Premier League to take on the resurgent Sale Sharks. Who moved up to fifth place and only sat down from the semi-finals. The Saracens pulled off an impressive 39-0 win in the 5th round against Bristol, led by Alex Lozowski, scored two wins and led the league table with four this season.
Alex Sanderson, rugby sales manager, urged the Sharks to take advantage of a 26–18 bonus points win over the Wasps to get back into the playoff race. This tactical analysis will take a closer look at the performance of both teams, focusing on the positives and negatives of the Sale Sharks, as well as the tactics used by the Saracens to help them maintain their excellent form in the league. The last three meetings between the two sides had seen Sale’s Sharks emerge victorious each time, including in the first round of the Premier League Rugby Cup in September when Sale recorded their first win at Allianz Park since 2005 with a 17– 36, which ended the scandal-hit the win-win home period of the Saracens, which dates back to February 2018.
When the teams met in early March 2020, the Saracens took a 24:13 home win with Richard Wigglesworth starting in the number 9 shirt, but we didn’t know the last round would be successful. The Saracens, relegated from the Premier League in 2020 due to persistent salary cap violations and fined more than 5 million PS, played the Saracens’ first game in the national top flight in almost a year when they faced Bristol at Ashton Gate.
The Harlequins have lost their last two Premier League games at Bath and are home to the Sale Sharks. They have not lost three games in a row since April 2019 are away from the Wasps but have not lost three games since December 2017, while the Saracens have not lost a home game in a row in the same Rugby Premier League season since playing at Vicarage Road” in 2005/06. Leicester Tigers have won their last four games since losing 26–25 to Sale in Round 14, while the Saracens have only lost once at home in the Gallagher Premier League since September 2020.
