Saracens beat Harlequins to boost play-off hopes

The Prem

Saracens (12) 26

Tries: penalty try, Malins, Tompkins, Dan Cons: Farrell 2

Harlequins (0) 12

Tries: Bradley, Anderson Cons: Smith

Saracens beat Harlequins to boost their Prem play-off hopes and give departing director of rugby Mark McCall a winning farewell at the StoneX Stadium.

Theo Dan went over from a line-out in the 81st minute to give Saracens a maximum five points to help them climb two points above Exeter Chiefs into fourth place.

Saracens raced into a 12-0 lead through a penalty try and a Max Malins score before Bryn Bradley went over in the final quarter to set up a nervy finale.

Nick Tompkins and Cameron Anderson exchanged tries before Dan crossed for the all-important fourth Saracens score to claim a bonus point.

It was the perfect send-off for the hugely successful McCall, who has won three European Champions Cups and six Prem titles during his 15 years in charge.

Saracens have won five successive games and face Exeter in a shootout for a play-off place at Sandy Park on Saturday.

Their pack showed its strength after seven minutes, pushing over from a five-metre scrum for a penalty try with Harlequins' Chandler Cunningham-Smith sin-binned for being offside.

Harlequins defended stoutly and Cadan Murley celebrated his 150th appearance for the club by making a try-saving tackle on Malins before Sean Kerr denied Tobias Elliott.

Saracens could not be stopped, however, and Tom Willis had to go backwards before shifting play out to the right, and the ball eventually found its way to Malins, who went over in the 24th minute to make it 12-0.

The home side could not shake Harlequins off and the visitors finally scored in the 62nd minute when Will Evans made the break before finding Bryn Bradley to cross near the posts for a try, which was by converted by Marcus Smith.

Saracens responded through Tompkins, who crossed over four minutes from time after great work by Olly Hartley.

Harlequins refused to lie down and Anderson went over two minutes later in the right corner after a fine passing move along the backline.

McCall badly wanted a fourth try in the tight play-off fight and it came in stoppage time when Dan powered over and Owen Farrell, whose wife gave birth to a son overnight, kicked the conversion.

Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall told BBC Radio London:

"The most important thing today was what happened on the field. We've worked incredibly hard over the last six or seven weeks to make this game important.

"It probably wasn't our best performance, but we got the job done. It's a good habit we've got now that we find a way to win matches.

"I thought we played well in the first 25-30 minutes, but we spilt the ball over the line or were held up on the line, and we could have been a few more up than we were.

"Quins, in fairness, fought back well, but we got the job done and we go effectively into a play-off game next week."

Harlequins head coach Jason Gilmore told BBC Radio London:

"I was really proud of their effort. These games always go down to the wire and we knew it was going to be close.

"If you have a look at it, we had more entries into the A zone, but didn't convert as many as we should have done. Turnover rate was just slightly higher than Sarries and in tight games, in a couple of those areas of our game, we probably let ourselves down.

"But I was really proud to fight back to 12-7 and then 19-12 to put ourselves in with a chance to win the game, but we were not clinical enough today to ice it."

Saracens: Malins; Caluori, Tompkins, Hartley, Elliott; Burke, C Bracken; Mawi, George, Street, Itoje (c), Tizard, Isiekwe, Earl, Willis.

Replacements: Dan, Carre, Clarey, McFarland, Michelow, Van Zyl, Farrell, J Bracken.

Harlequins: Benson; Anderson, Kerr, Bradley, Murley; Smith, Porter; Hobson, Riley, Delgado, Carr, Williams, Cunningham-South, Kenningham, Dombrandt (c).

Replacements: Musk, Wenger, Streeter, Green, Driscoll, Evans, Townsend, Cleaves.

Sin-bin: Cunningham-South (7).

Referee: Luke Pearce