Saracens edge Munster to lift Euro ambitions
CAPTAIN Steve Borthwick insists Saracens will not be getting ahead of themselves despite moving into the box seat for Heineken Cup qualification with a 19-13 victory over Munster yesterday.
Fourteen points from Owen Farrell did the damage for the Aviva Premiership outfit with David Strettle also crossing for a try as Sarries moved to the top of Pool One.
But despite having their European fate in their own hands former England skipper Borthwick said: “We are not a group that gets carried away or that shouts from the rooftops.
“We are going back into the league now which is huge for us. We know we have got two games left in Europe and that we want to finish as well as we can but we will focus on that in January.”
Meanwhile domestic leaders Harlequins’ impressive start to the season at home and in Europe continued as they made it four Heineken Cup wins from four.
A seven-try destruction of Zebre on Saturday helped them to a 53-5 victory to leave them top of Pool Three.
Nick Evans kicked 18 points and England scrum-half Danny Care scored one of the tries.
“We want to be successful here and we all vowed to kick on after winning the Aviva Premiership last May,” said director of rugby Conor O’Shea
“So far this season we’ve won 13 out of 16 games, we’re top of the Premiership, we’re top of our Heineken Cup pool unbeaten, we’ve won both LV= Cup games so far and we’re in the A League final, so we are definitely doing OK. But we don’t just want to win this pool, we want a home quarter-final.”
London sides endured a mixed weekend in the Amlin Challenge Cup, meanwhile.
London Irish were on the wrong end of a thrashing at Gloucester, Tom Homer’s penalty their solitary points in a 47-3 win, while London Welsh lost 27-13 to Grenoble. Wasps beat Bayonne on Thursday.
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