The crackdown on dangerous tackles yielded its first Premiership casualty after 11 minutes when the prop Richard Barrington was sent off for knocking out the Exeter second row Geoff Parling with a shoulder charge, but Exeter questioned whether the Saracens captain, Brad Barritt, should have seen red for a high tackle on the same player a second earlier.
The teams second and third in the table at the start of the day met in a repeat of last season’s Premiership final and the visitors, whose last defeat on the road in the Premiership was in September, were the less satisfied in a drawn with three players failing head injury assessments after going to low in the tackle and five in all treated for concussion.
“If we are not careful, we are going to make the game worse, not better,” said the Sarries scrum-half Richard Wigglesworth.
The planning of both sides lasted until Barrington’s high challenge on Parling left the hosts with 14 men. They were fortunate not to have lost Barritt, who made the first challenge on the second row who ducked into the tackle and the centre’s arm caught him in the face.
Barrington, standing behind Barritt, led with his shoulder. He made contact with the head of Parling who collapsed to the ground and was taken from the field on a stretcher having been treated for five minutes, later taking a seat in the dugout before the end of the opening half. The referee, Ian Tempest, watched the incident from various angles on the big screen before ruling that Barrington, who was making his 100th appearance for Sarries, had made contact with Parling’s head with force and that he had “little option” but to send him off.
Given the zero tolerance approach on high tackles by World Rugby, Barritt will probably be cited. His challenge was high and appeared to fail the control part of the new sanction. Tempest used his discretion, punishing the player who caused the injury while not ending the game as a contest at the outset.
Saracens had already lost a player with concussion, perhaps because of the crackdown on dangerous challenges. The centre Marcelo Bosch went lower in his tackle on Henry Slade in the sixth-minute than he probably would have the week before and his head made contact with the England centre’s left hip. Why players have to refine their technique halfway through a campaign has not been properly explained and the risk is that the number of injuries prevented are wiped out by those caused: the Exeter second row Ollie Atkins’s match ended early in the second-half when he stooped to tackle Schalk Brits and his head made contact with the hooker’s hip.
Duncan Taylor followed after trying to stop Jack Yeandle and Barritt was treated for concussion after the match.
Exeter took immediate advantage of Barrington’s dismissal when Gareth Steenson, who had earlier been wide from 45 metres, kicked the resulting penalty. Sarries then took off the wing Sean Maitland to bring on the prop Titi Lamositele and Steenson wasted no time in exploiting his side’s advantage out wide, hanging a cross-kick with enough height for Jack Nowell to scoop the ball one-handed and score in the corner.
Exeter were less assertive with a man advantage than they were before Barrington’s dismissal. They carried with less force and Sarries used their full complement of forwards to maintain the edge up front they had established at the first scrum, force turnovers and secure territory. They sought to follow the examples of England against the Argentina in November and Bristol at home to Worcester last week, when they won after having a player sent off in the opening minutes.
Alex Lozowski scored their first points on 23 minutes with a penalty awarded after a collapsed scrum and, frill free, controlled the tempo of the match. They went into the interval 10-3 down thanks to a tackle by Michael Rhodes that summed up the willpower and indefatigability of the champions. Don Armand saw a gap between Rhodes and Juan Figallo on the home 22 and ran through it. He looked to have made it to the corner, riding Chris Wyles’s tackle, when Rhodes arrived with his left arm outstretched and dislodged the ball from the Exeter flanker’s grasp.
Lozowski’s second penalty after 52 minutes roused the crowd, but Steenson replied 10 minutes from the end having earlier missed from 35 metres.
The Chiefs, though, had aimed low and paid for it five minutes from the end when Sarries used a penalty to force an attacking lineout, which finished with the replacement prop Vincent Koch emerging from the bottom of a maul.
Lozowski converted from the touchline to make a draw seem like a win as the champions returned to the top of the table.
SARACENS Goode; Maitland (Lamositele 13), Bosch (Tompkins 5; Taylor 52), Barritt (capt), Wyles; Lozowski, Wigglesworth; Barrington, Brits (George 50), Figallo (Koch 48), Itoje, Hamilton, Rhodes (Skelton 50), Brown (Burger 61), Wray Sent off Barrington 11
Try Koch Con Lozowski Pens Lozowski 2
EXETER Dollman; Nowell, Hill, Slade (Whitten 62), Short; Steenson (capt), Chudley (Maunder 65); Rimmer (Moon 48), Cowan-Dickie (Yeandle 58), Holmes (Williams 48), Atkins, Parling (Lees 11), Armand, Johnson, Waldrom
Try Nowell Con Steenson Pen Steenson 2
Attendance 10,000
Game rating 6 Referee Ian Tempest
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