Sale Sharks’ beaten Premiership finalists headed off to three days in Marbella with their director of rugby Alex Sanderson regretting a “missed opportunity” against Saracens, and promising to come back “bigger, faster, stronger, for longer”.
Saracens, meanwhile, are making negative noises about the Premiership salary cap, as they lose senior players, including Jackson Wray and Duncan Taylor, who they say would have stayed if the cap was not going down to a base of £5m next season, although league insiders say various credits push the effective figure above £8m.
Sale led 25-23 going into the last quarter, but in one of several key moments they had a line-out on the Saracens goal-line spoiled by Maro Itoje, and the London club went on to capture a sixth title in 13 seasons, 35-25, with two tries in five minutes by Elliot Daly and Ivan van Zyl.
“The odd fairy tale does happen but you have got to be better at handling moments, and that takes experience,” said Sanderson after Sale’s first final since 2006. “There were a couple of crucial line-outs lost in that last quarter.
“I’m telling them to get used to this place [Twickenham]. There are a few conversations about being here again. We are a young side for the most part and I am sure, after the crushing feeling I have right now of missed opportunity, the underlying emotion will be pride and excitement for what we can build on.”
Back-rower Wray is retiring after more than 300 Saracens appearances while centre Taylor was involved in a major turning point with his charge-down of young Sale full-back Joe Carpenter after a lost line-out, to set up Daly’s try on 66 minutes.
Director of rugby Mark McCall said: “This is not the team that won the double in 2019, far from it. Everyone knows we are a squad in transition. We sat down in August as a group and talked about playing differently, more bravely, and that included fitness and mental toughness and not going into our shell.
“Younger players would benefit from the wisdom of Jackson and Duncan for another year. But it’s gone and that’s a real shame, because they would have continued playing.”
Wray told i: “The elephant in the room is the salary cap being the lowest in my time – that is a challenge against the big boys of all the French clubs, and Leinster. Some of them have almost three times as big a budget. Which is not to mean we can’t build towards that. This team is incredibly talented, young, we’ve got some talent coming through and you’ve got some old heads guiding them. Next year I expect Saracens to be up there again, domestically.
“Hopefully we have learnt a hell of a lot from that La Rochelle game [the Champions Cup defeat in France in April] because we weren’t far away, and they went on to win it. If we come up against them again, I am sure we’ll do better.”
Theo Dan had a fine 70 minutes as an injury substitute for hooker Jamie George, to reinforce the 22-year-old’s claims for an England World Cup call-up.
McCall, a former player at London Irish, also expressed concern over the financial plight of his old club, with a Rugby Football Union deadline of tomorrow for a takeover to be ratified, otherwise Irish will face suspension from the Premiership.
“It’s hard to be jubilant when things have happened and are happening,” said McCall. “I love London Irish and it’s going to be awful if that [suspension] happens. It is a shame because the on-field product is good.”
