Manu Tuilagi could not have worse luck if he throttled several black cats. Eight minutes into the sixth match of his latest comeback, he made a typical outside break that it took three tacklers to thwart but lay on the ground clutching his right knee and had to be helped off, little more than 24 hours after the Lions centre had been named in the England squad.
His impact in possession was missed by the Tigers, who lacked a focal point in the tightest of matches and slumped to their second home defeat of the campaign.
Instead of going to Brighton for a two-day training camp on Sunday night, Tuilagi had another visit to hospital to look forward to and a scan. “At least his groin is fine,” said the Leicester director of rugby, Richard Cockerill, referring to the problem that had played a large part in restricting the midfielder to 38 appearances in four seasons. “He got a bang on the outside of his knee and these things need up to 48 hours. I saw him at half-time: he smiled and I laughed. We crack on, don’t we?”
Crack was the word for Leicester, who tried going toe-to-toe with the most obdurate of opponents but tripped themselves up. In a match played in drizzle after a morning of heavy rain, the ball spent much of the time in the air, Ben Spencer, the day after he made England’s elite squad, getting the better of Ben Youngs, not least because of the protection he was given at the breakdown.
Spencer had the time to hang his kicks and give his chasers every opportunity of either catching the ball or hitting the defender who had taken possession. Meanwhile Youngs was rushed into decisions by Maro Itoje, who capped another eye-catching performance by making an unusual charge-down, sliding in football style after Owen Williams had kicked with his left foot and getting the ball rather than his opponent’s ankle.
Leicester achieved a surprising measure of dominance up front, Ellis Genge, looking to give the watching Eddie Jones a nudge after the head coach left him out of the national squad, and Dan Cole winning a succession of penalties in the scrum. But so convincingly had Saracens won the kicking game that only two were within the kicking range of Owen Williams.
It was from a kick that Saracens scored the only try of the game after 54 minutes, seconds after Williams had hooked a 35-metre penalty that would have put the Tigers 12-6 ahead. As Leicester looked to play the ball on their own 10-metre line, Rhodes again showed his nuisance value and Youngs had not got the ball firmly in his grasp when he looped a pass to Williams.
As the fly-half tried to take the ball above his head he was unnerved by the looming presence of Brad Barritt, who seized possession and set up a ruck. Saracens went left, where Owen Farrell used the threat of the 22st Will Skelton outside him to commit Mike Williams to cover the second row. That created a hole which Cole, standing inside Farrell, was never going to fill and the outside-half ran in from 30 metres for the score that came to be decisive.
When Leicester’s moment came 13 minutes from time, they lacked the same calculation. Barritt’s chip just inside Leicester’s half was blocked by Jack Roberts and Tuilagi’s replacement Tom Brady carried the ball into Saracens’ 22 where, tackled by Alex Goode, he passed to Roberts outside him. The timing was wrong and Barritt tracked back to make up for his mistake.
The two incidents marked a crucial difference between the sides and, while it was Saracens’ first league win here since 2013, Leicester have won only four of the last 17 Premiership meetings with the champions. Sarries closed the gap with the leaders, Wasps, to one point with a victory that was achieved without the Vunipola brothers and the England second-row George Kruis, who is unlikely to play again this month after suffering a broken cheekbone but is expected to be fit for the start of the Six Nations.
Sarries’ kicking game helped compensate for the drop in rushing metres in the absence of the Vunipolas on a day when territory was king. Leicester took the lead on 10 minutes with the first of Williams’ four penalties but he missed two others, including one from just wide of the posts at the end of the first half when Leicester had for the only time in the match made their scrum dominance count near their opponents’ line.
Cockerill reached for the word hindsight when asked if another scrum and with it the prospect of a penalty try would have been the better option, but Saracens, who lost Chris Ashton to a head injury in the second half, would still have found a way to win. The Tigers have been able for the most part to mask their shortcomings at home this season after being exposed away which is why the latest loss of Tuilagi is so cruel. He was in full flow, leaving Farrell grasping air and Marcelo Bosch hanging on grimly when Sean Maitland clattered the centre from behind and caught his right knee. Accidents happen to Tuilagi more often than most and England again look like having to prepare for a tournament without him.
Leicester Burns; Betham, Roberts, Tuilagi (Brady, 8), Thompstone; O Williams, B Youngs (Harrison, 75); Genge, T Youngs (capt; McGuigan, 75), Cole, Slater, Fitzgerald, M Williams (Kitchener, 75), O’Connor, McCaffrey (Evans, 56). Pens O Williams 3.
Saracens: Goode; Ashton (Earle, 48), Bosch, Barritt (capt), Maitland; Farrell, Spencer (De Kock, 63); Barrington (Lamositele, 50), George (Brits, 50), Figallo, Skelton (Hamilton, 61), Itoje, Rhodes, Burger (Brown, 69), Wray. Try Farrell. Con Farrell. Pens Farrell 3.
Referee JP Doyle Attendance 25,248
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