Aviva Premiership 
/ Ralph Ellis / 24 May 2011 / Leave a Comment 
Owen Farrell's kicking has proved very productive for Sarries this season
"If there's one team that rises to the challenge of giving total commitment for 80 minutes - as they showed against Gloucester last week -it is the South African-influenced Sarries."
Ralph Ellis believes that Mark McCall will use a perceived injustice to fire his men up for Saturday's big match. And if they get the bit between their teeth, they could prove unstoppable...
When it comes to galvanising a team for a big game, nothing beats a sense of injustice. Get your players to think the press, the fans, the referees and officials are all against them, build up the anger a bit more. Then watch them go.
This time last year Saracens were smarting when director of rugby Brendan Venter was banned from the Premiership's Grand Final. He'd got into a row with some Leicester fans for daring to stand up in front of them to watch the game. And the full might of the RFU came crashing down on him.
Wind the clock on and now it is Sarries' opponents Leicester who have been in trouble. Their rugby director Richard Cockerill was picked up during the semi-final win over Northampton on a local radio station microphone abusing World Cup referee Wayne Barnes - coincidentally the man who will be in charge of Sunday's Twickenham clash. "He's meant to be a Test referee in the biggest match of the season. It's not bloody good enough," Cockerill shouted. And just for good measure his head coach Matt O'Connor was also reported to have angrily punched - and broken - a Perspex shield around the dugout.
Yet guess what? While South African Venter felt the full might of the disciplinary process it seems that former-England hooker Cockerill, and his sidekick, have been let off. The RFU's elite referee development manager Brian Campsall told a tribunal he was "too busy writing in my notebook to take note of anything that was being said by the coaches."
Venter may have moved on from Vicarage Road, but you can be sure there will be some men with long memories about last season's perceived injustice. They lost by just six points to Leicester, 33-27, and must have felt that Venter's presence could have inspired the converted try that would have turned defeat to victory. New team boss Mark McCall may lack the abrasive edge of his predecessor, but that won't stop him having a grumble in the dressing room that it's been one law for one club and one for another. They will also be asking if one of their players would have got off as lightly as Manu Tuilagi for that outrageous assault on Chris Ashton.
McCall's men were already a value price at [2.74] to win at Twickenham. They hit a sensational run of form in the second half of the season, putting together 11 back to back wins from the start of January, a run which crucially included beating Leicester at Welford Road. Owen Farrell's goal-kicking under pressure has come through time after time, and if there's one team that rises to the challenge of giving total commitment for 80 minutes - as they showed against Gloucester last week -it is the South African-influenced Sarries.
Give them a bit more reason to be riled, as the RFU's blazers have done, and Cockerill might just find he's got something more to have a moan about.
Five things you might not know about Wayne Barnes
1. Born April 1979 in Gloucestershire, he started playing mini-rugby for Bream RFC then turned into a promising second row for Whitecross School.
2. He was 15 when he started refereeing - taking charge of Bream Thirds v Berry Hill Wappers - for something to do while he was injured. He went on playing for the University 1st XV after moving to East Anglia to study law, but by then was refereeing seriously on Saturday as well.
3. At 21 he became the youngest ever appointed to the National Panel of referees, and made his Test debut five years later
4. He qualified as a barrister and specialised in criminal law - but gave up the bench in 2005 to become a full time official
5. He names former Sale player Nigel Yates - also a lawyer and fellow Premiership ref - as his biggest influence
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