Owen Farrell: I used to sit all day and watch the Champions Cup. It is special
It must be ideal being a Saracens player at the moment. They’re down in Pretoria, where the mid-morning temperature is in the early 20s, and training thousands of miles away from their London home, where it’s barely touching double figures.
But the challenge they face on Saturday in the form of the Vodacom Bulls will be no easy one for the three-time kings of Europe and reigning English Premiership champions.
The Bulls reached the round of 16 last year, where they were beaten by Toulouse, while Saracens went one step further but lost in the last eight to eventual champions La Rochelle.
Farrell: We must better ourselves
And for Owen Farrell, who two weeks ago announced he’d be taking time out from international rugby to focus on his mental well-being, Saracens’ success is the immediate focus.
“What we need to do is to try and be a better team than we were last year because we didn’t go as far as we would have liked in the competition,” he says.
“We’ve got to make sure that we keep building over the year and that starts for us going to Pretoria, which is another new challenge, but one that I’m hoping that we’re going to be really excited for.
“The thing I’m trying to get my head around the most is how we are playing in the sun in December. It will be a good challenge, a good thing for us to get stuck into, and we’re spending the week there, but it will certainly be a tough test.”
Saracens won three finals in four years between 2016 and 2019, beating Racing 92, Clermont and Leinster, but have since had a barren experience on the European front – and missed a season when the side were relegated to England’s second tier for breaching the domestic salary cap.
Evolution
A common misconception surrounding the north Londoners is that they play a simplistic, boring brand of rugby. But to win trophies, let alone at a European level, clubs must adapt – something Leinster failed to do in their consecutive final defeats to La Rochelle.
“I don’t think that everybody has won the Champions Cup in the same way. We’ve won it a few times and we’ve never been the same, we’ve not won it the same way three times,” Farrell adds.
“Some of them have been where you’ve not done so well and then you’ve springboarded yourself into the back end of the competition. And there’s been one where we’ve played well throughout the competition.
“I think it’s about dealing with what’s in front of you, dealing with what you’ve been dealt, dealing with the exciting challenges that are going to come your way where your squad will be tested throughout a Champions Cup and a long season in the Premiership.
Wall-to-wall Champions Cup
“The Premiership is the one that is close to home and probably more consistent throughout the year, in terms of the league and then going into the semis and finals. In this competition you put yourself into knockout rugby a lot earlier, so they are very different.
“But when I was still at school and watching the rugby, I couldn’t wait for the Champions Cup weekends. You’d sit there [watching on TV] on a Friday night, then you’d sit there all day Saturday and then you’d sit there all day Sunday. Sometimes you don’t move.”
After getting their campaign underway in South Africa this weekend, Saracens host Connacht and then head to Bordeaux before hosting Lyon. Whatever happens on Saturday, it’s not about to get any easier.