TITANIC! Saracens v Gloucester Hartpury

Get your popcorn! Finally, the most mouth-watering tie of the PWR season so far is up. And this is your ultimate preview, right here.

We hear direct from Saracens scrum half Olivia Apps and Gloucester full back Nel Metcalfe, plus their respective head coaches Alex Austerberry and Dan Murphy, talking about their expectations and where the game might be won and lost.

There’s no underdogs here! Two teams, both alike on 55 points each, pulling away from the chasing pack. Saracens only loss this season came in the very first match, away against Gloucester.

Since then, Sarries have pushed on, sometimes winning at a canter, and sometimes, as against Bristol Bears, coming back from the brink with the final penalty kick of the game, but always finding a way to victory. Meanwhile, the travelling Circus has picked up wins everywhere.

Now Saracens have the chance for revenge for their slow start to their campaign – their only misstep all season. But Gloucester will be planning to stop the Sarries surge at the StoneX, in front of a big North London crowd. So let’s hear what key players and their coaches expect…

First up, Gloucester Hartpury head of rugby, Dan Murphy, who is riding high in his first season in charge:

Is this the biggest rivalry in women’s club rugby at the moment?

Dan Murphy: Yeah, I think so. Historically down in the west country, it’s been Gloucester Hartpury and Exeter, but it’s grown to be this, GH and Sarries going at it.

Because it’s the game everyone wants to see and it’s a privilege to be part of.

Are you actually underdogs for this one?

Yeah, go on then. If that makes Saracens feel better, why not.

Does it make you feel better? Would it be quite nice?

Yeah, when I took this job, I knew there was a huge target on our backs, every week. When people play Gloucester Hartpury everyone raises themselves, 5, 10%.

I knew that taking the job. And pressure’s a privilege, right? The privilege part, to keep that privilege going, you need to be constantly looking at how you can get better.

[laughs] And yeah if that makes Saracens feel better, then yeah, happy to take that tag.

How do you deal with the brilliance of Liv Apps?

It’s going to be a hell of a battle. I spoke to someone before about Mo and Liv Apps… both very similar players – driving tempo, energy, moving the ball, both have sevens experience, and you can see that in the 15s game.

It’s not going to be the one person that we have to control, it’s going to be the team we have to control. The physicality in their carries, their forward pack, and how Apps is able to move the ball and get that backline firing. So it’s going to be a front-line battle to slow them down.

Gloucester full back, Nel Metcalfe, who deputised for Emma Sing against Exeter, adds her thoughts:

What excites you most about this match?

Nel Metcalfe: I think the physical challenge is going to be huge on Sunday.

Another thing, both packs have been brilliant this season. So that’s going to be a big part of the game, but also I’d say we’ve got two teams who like to move the ball around, so that’s gonna be really exciting as well.

I hope it’s going to be a great game, and we can score lots of tries and entertain. Hoping for a good game, an open game and exciting rugby.

Are you actually the underdogs for this one?

Oh, I don’t know. I wouldn’t say so. I don’t think there is necessarily an underdog, I wouldn’t think. No, I think both teams are in really good positions going into Sunday. It’s going to be huge.

Is this game the ultimate test?

No, I wouldn’t say it’s the ultimate test, there’s still a long season ahead. But it is gonna be a test. It’s gonna be a great game, a great occasion, but no, I wouldn’t say it’s the ultimate test.

Olivia ‘Liv’ Apps (above) has made the switch from Sevens to 15s, and the Canadian scrum half is one of Saracens breakout PWR stars, alongside another player with high rugby IQ, Zoe Harrison.

And Apps is certainly looking forward to the challenge of Gloucester, especially as she missed that first match of the season – which was Sarries’ only defeat.

Everyone’s been talking about this game on Sunday – what excites you most about this matchup?

Liv Apps: What excites me most?

For me, I feel with Saracens, every game we’re growing and developing different parts of our game and different opponents challenge us in different areas.

Coming off the Quins game, I think we struggled to keep possession for multiple phases.

So for this weekend, I’m really excited about our attack and just continuing to build pressure through our phases and the tempo and the style of rugby that we play.

That’s what I’m most excited about because we didn’t really get to showcase that against Quins last weekend.

I’m also really looking forward to seeing where our set piece is.

Obviously, that’s a big strength for Gloucester, so for us defensively in our line and scrum and also making sure the backs really front up, because we know our forwards are going to put in a strong performance there.

So I’m just looking forward to seeing how we really connect off our set piece defence.

And then our attacking open play is always fun for me.

It seems to me you fit Saracens like a glove and vice versa. It seems a really good matchup and the crowd have really taken to you too. Why you think that’s happened?

Well, I think it’s a couple of things.

Saracens has a really great range of players with multiple skill sets where we can really play an exciting style of rugby.

Kevin Rouet coming in as an attack coach this year, bringing in some of the Canadian style really showcases my strengths as a scrum half and playing with a lot of tempo, playing with a lot of speed.

Also having a lot of internationals around me that can read and react off my style of play really helps me look good!

I think it’s just a combination of that.

We were able to basically go: okay, what kind of skill sets do we have as rugby players and then how can we use that to our advantage in the style of rugby we play?

And we have one of the best fly-halves in the world with Zoe Harrison and she can create something out of nothing… and the pack that we have… Marlie Packer, people like Poppy Cleall, we can just create something out of nothing.

That’s where we found a lot of success this year in scoring a lot of points.

Saracens head coach Alex Austerberry knows it’s a big game, but is certainly not having any underdog tag attached to Gloucester. He is looking forward to it though…

Gloucester spoke to my colleague, and said [maybe with tongue in cheek] that they’re happy to be the underdogs in this.

Alex Austerberry: Well, I think that’s a load of rubbish.

They’re champions, aren’t they?

They’re unbeaten.

They are not the underdogs.

They’re unbeaten across the league.

We got a little bit of a lesson when we played there at the beginning of the season.

And they’re back-to-back champions.

In fact, three-time champions.

I think I’ve heard that once or twice on their social medias!

I see through that as a little bit of mind games to take some of the pressure off.

Ultimately they’re the champions; they’re the ones top of the league in terms of unbeaten.

We might sit there at the moment, and I’d say that their unbeaten season they’ve talked about that as well.

That’s pressure in itself so I think history will tell us in recent years that we are the underdogs in this, not them.

What makes this the biggest rivalry at the moment in women’s club rugby?

I think that’s your terminology, not mine!

We’ve got lots of rivalries, haven’t we?

I think this one at the moment is two teams that have been at the top of the league last season, this season.

So it’s a rivalry in terms of that.

And obviously from our perspective, it’s a team that have taken the title for the last three years.

And that’s something we want to try to win back.

We want to knock them off the perch equally as when they were chasing us for many years. It was the same thing.

But it’s different, it’s not your local rivals around the corner, where you bump into them in the coffee shops.

It is just a respectful rivalry based on what they’ve achieved, how competitive they are, how challenging the fixtures have been, for certainly the last memorable few years, it’s been really tight fixtures.

That’s where the challenge and the rivalry comes.

They’ve got something that ultimately we want to win back.

It doesn’t need much of a build-up, but for you personally, how much do you relish this kind of clash of not just teams, but you against Dan Murphy too?

I don’t think me or Dan are that egotistical in that we make about the two of us.

It’s certainly not.

There’s an incredible support staff behind both these teams and all the teams in the league that work incredibly hard.

And then you’ve got the gifted players that give everything that they can.

It’s certainly not a game of chess between Dan and myself.

It’s a game of chess in elements between all the coaches and all the playing staff, but it’s far bigger and will always be far bigger than just the two coaches.

I don’t see this as me getting one over Dan. He might think differently, but this is me making sure that Saracens are in the right place to do what we want to achieve and that’s ultimately what my aim, my job and my goal is consistently.

It’s about how can I play my part in making sure we’re in the best place possible to put in the performance that this group has the talent and potential to deliver.

Where do you think that this battle on Sunday can be won and lost?

Everywhere… it’s full of immense talent and quality.

We’ve talked about the breakdown.

That’s an area where we want to play and we’ve got to make sure we don’t give away penalties there, and feed a catch and a drive, because ultimately that’s big territorial gains for them and it’s an area of the game that they execute pretty well.

We’ve got to make sure we stay true to our defensive principles… and equally in attack we’ve got to make sure that we execute slightly better than we did at the weekend against Harlequins.

Then ultimately it comes back to then simple things of rugby. How well does your set piece go. Can you make sure you make your tackles and when you get the opportunities to score, can you score?

So, it’s all the normal battlegrounds, but they’re just intensified and amplified that bit further because you’re playing against a team that’s got quality everywhere and are going into this as heavy favourites.

Game on!

Teams:

Saracens:

1 Kelsey Clifford, 2 May Campbell (cc), 3 Donna Rose, 4 Julia Omokhuale, 5 Laetitia Royer, 6 Gabrielle Senft, 7 Marlie Packer, 8 Poppy Cleall, 9 Olivia Apps, 10 Zoe Harrison (cc), 11 Lotte Sharp, 12 Sophie Bridger, 13 Emma Hardy, 14 Alysha Corrigan, 15 Jess Breach 

Impact Subs: 

16 Bryony Field; 17 Liz Crake; 18 Carmen Tremelling; 19 Louise McMillan; 20 Georgia Evans; 21 Tori Sellors; 22 Amelia MacDougall; 23 Deborah Wills

Gloucester Hartpury:

15 Emma Sing; 14 Mia Venner; 13 Hannah Dallavalle; 12 Tatyana Heard; 11 Rachel Lund; 10 Lleucu George; 9 Natasha Hunt (C); 1 Niamh O’Dowd; 2 Kelsey Jones; 3 Maud Muir; 4 Sam Monaghan; 5 Sarah Beckett; 6 Bethan Lewis; 7 Georgia Brock; 8 Alex Matthews

Impact subs:

16 Lucy Simpson; 17 Ranni Samuda; 18 Sisilia Tuipulotu; 19 Steph Else; 20 Tabitha Copson; 21 Bianca Blackburn; 22 Lizzie Goulden; 23 Molly Bunker

StoneX Stadium, Sunday 15^th March, kick-off 12.30pm.
We’ll be there for the epic, and you can also watch live on TNT Sports.

Photos: Helen M Jerome