Saracens edge Leicester as Carreras lights up Prem opening weekend

Saracens opened their Prem season with a 40-38 win at Leicester on Sunday, surviving a 20-minute red card in a match containing 12 tries. The two-point finish gave Brendan Venter a victory in his return as Saracens director of rugby and supplied the sharpest comeback story of the opening weekend.

Bath also made a winning start, beating Harlequins 33-17 on Friday. Their full-back Santi Carreras produced the weekend’s most unusual score: he kicked an opponent’s pass into the air, gathered it near the touchline and ran in at the other end. BBC Sport’s opening-round review also noted wins for Northampton and Gloucester.

Saracens withstand Leicester’s late challenge

Saracens scored inside two minutes through Juan Martín González and added a second try through Tobias Elliott. Leicester answered through Solomone Kata and Gabriel Hamer-Webb, but Elliot Daly’s try sent the visitors into half-time nine points ahead, according to Saracens’ match report. The club described the eventual result as its first bonus-point win of the season.

Leicester repeatedly cut into that advantage after the break. Hamer-Webb completed a hat-trick, and Adam Radwan’s try put the hosts ahead for the first time. Saracens then lost Nick Isiekwe to a 20-minute red card for a tackle on Freddie Steward. The card added to an already difficult afternoon for the visitors, who had lost centre Olly Hartley to an arm injury earlier in the match.

The Guardian identified the kicking margin as another factor: Saracens’ Fergus Burke landed five conversions to Billy Searle’s four for Leicester. In a game decided by two points, those successful kicks mattered as much as the late tries.

Saracens head coach Joe Shaw told the Guardian his side had come to win and to show what its forwards had worked on in pre-season. Ben Earl, speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live after the match, said the team had worked more on its mental game and its response when events went against it. Those comments followed a win in which the lead changed hands repeatedly during the final half-hour.

Carreras turns defence into a Bath try

At Twickenham Stoop, Harlequins had scored two tries to Bath’s two around the half-hour mark when Tyrone Green moved the ball towards Oscar Beard on the outside. Carreras, Bath’s last defender, put a foot into the passing lane. The ball rose from his boot; he chased it, regathered near the touchline and ran in to score. A promising Harlequins attack had become a Bath try in seconds.

Bath had secured a bonus point by half-time in their 33-17 victory, the Guardian reported. The result came against a Harlequins side missing Marcus Smith and Alex Dombrandt. The match report described Carreras’s intervention as a turning point, while BBC Sport singled it out in its account of the opening round.

The BBC raised the possibility that players might try using a foot in similar passing lanes after Carreras’s score. That is an observation about what could follow from an unusual play, rather than evidence of an established change in tactics.

Other winning starts

Gloucester won away at Exeter, with debutant Dewi Lake scoring twice and earning player-of-the-match recognition, according to BBC Sport. The BBC also highlighted Tomos Williams’s Saracens debut and Aaron Wainwright’s first Leicester appearance in the same high-scoring match. Hamer-Webb’s three tries were not enough to prevent a Leicester defeat.

Northampton began their title defence with a win over Newcastle Red Bulls. BBC Sport noted that Henry Pollock made 81 metres from 13 carries in the match. Its review also drew attention to Pollock’s new cornrows, a lighter detail alongside the results and performances that marked the Prem’s return.