Gloucester demolish second-string Saracens but playoff spot is out of reach

A 50-point thrashing of everyone’s favourite pantomime villains was greeted with as much euphoria as one might expect at Kingsholm. Gloucester put eight tries past a Saracens second team, but the hypothetical goal of a place in the playoffs remained out of reach, after Northampton matched their bonus-point victory at Franklin’s Gardens.

Like any good professional outfit, Gloucester no doubt approached this according to that age-old adage about the next match being the only one, but deep down they will have known their cause was lost. No matter how well they played, how much they won by, Northampton were never going to fail to beat Newcastle at home.

Likewise, Saracens already had their home semi-final sewn up. To claim top spot, they would need Leicester to lose at home to another side towards the bottom end of the table, Wasps. Again, if not quite no chance, given Wasps’ pursuit of a place in Europe, it was another unlikely directive. So they fielded a second team, resting their big guns for the playoffs. Max Malins was the only survivor from Saracens’ Challenge Cup semi-final in Toulon a fortnight earlier.

Malins brandished his first-team class with an outrageous dive for the corner midway through the first half, but the ball just slipped from his grasp as he tried to dot down in mid-air. That was as close as Saracens came to scoring in the first half, but by then Gloucester were two tries up, their increasingly renowned lineout and drive the bedrock of both.

Jack Singleton showed an eye-opening turn of pace in the buildup to Gloucester’s third on the half-hour, but he scored the first in more traditional fashion. Gloucester sent a couple of penalties to the corner early on, driving Singleton over at the second time of