SARACENS STEADIED THE ship ahead of next weekend’s Champions Cup trip to face Munster at Thomond Park with a 35-26 victory over Bristol Bears in the English Premiership.
Leinster loanee Harry Byrne made his debut off the bench for the visitors, whose 10-game unbeaten road run came to an emphatic end at StoneX Stadium.
Byrne entered the field at out-half on 44 minutes with his side in a 27-7 hole. He recovered from a shaky first couple of possessions to steer Pat Lam’s side towards a try bonus point in defeat.
Byrne, 25, lost an intercept with his first pass and soon afterwards bounced another one off the head of a teammate, but his passing stood out thereafter as he blended seamlessly into Bristol’s free-flowing attack.
The Leinster man was eventually partnered at half-back by fellow replacement and former Connacht and Ireland scrum-half Kieran Marmion.
Byrne, a four-cap Irish international, converted second-half Bristol tries by Kavaleti Ravouvou and Harry Thacker, the latter from the touchline. However, his final effort from the tee, an equally difficult conversion from Jake Heenan’s bonus-point try, drifted agonisingly wide to deny Bristol a second match point with the clock red.
In truth, though, this was a game dominated by Saracens, for whom Tom Willis was totemic.
The 25-year-old number eight, younger brother of Toulouse and England back row Jack Willis, finished two superb tries to surely factor his way into Steve Borthwick’s thinking ahead of the Six Nations.
Saracens responded in style to their record defeat to Bath at The Rec last week, out-half Fergus Burke also scoring a brace of tries with Lucio Cinti adding a further score.
Victory moved Saracens to within a point of Bristol in third place in the Premiership table. They face Munster at Thomond Park in the Champions Cup a week from today.
Byrne did ok, some of his passes were a little off. He got a couple of great kicks. He needs game time to build his sharpness. Hopefully he’ll get plenty of that over the next few months to get his career going. Don’t think he has a route through Leinster, but would be great to see him starting somewhere else. He’s too talented to be sitting in the stand in Leinster.
Was looking forward to this match, Bristol are poor and Byrne will drive higher standards from them in all facets of the game.
@Brian Kernahan: is this a wind up…
Sarries look primed for the visit to Thomond …
@John Morris: Definitely…Tom Willis at 8 looks to be a real player, hadn’t noticed him before, on fire today..
@John Geary: What a game he had. Some lovely line breaks/offloads, that run on the wing was sublime.
Was looking forward to this match but Bristol are poor, Byrne will drive their acceptable standards higher as he won’t accept that sort of nonsense
@Brian Kernahan: Harry Byrne cost Bristol a losing BP
@Conor Lynott: Thought he was unlucky with his last kick, looked like it went over the post. He got a couple of great kicks before that.
@Conor Lynott: Can’t have everything and this was his first match In a while. He also helped setup the second try.
@Conor Lynott: Ah would you give over.
@Conor Lynott: don’t be such an anus mcginty
Bit of a Harry Byrne love-in on here – he made an average contribution but missing the last kick meant it ended on a sour note. Needs another match to see if he is up to this level.