Saracens: Maro Itoje always confident his club would be back amongst Premiership’s best

Saracens second-row Maro Itoje never doubted that his club would be back in the running for the game’s leading prizes although he acknowledged it would be an “amazing achievement” if they managed to beat Leicester Tigers in Saturday’s Premiership final.

Sarries are back in English rugby’s marquee match just a year after they beat Ealing Trailfinders over two legs to earn promotion from the Championship.

It was expected that Saracens‘ relegation to the Championship in 2020 for salary cap breaches would spell the death knell of the North London club, who had been the premier side in England during the previous decade when they won five Premiership titles and were crowned European Champions Cup winners on three occasions.

But Itoje was always confident that it would only be a matter of time before they would be back at Twickenham to compete for honours once again.

“I felt Saracens was the best place for me to continue to grow as a rugby player and as a person and I still felt certain towards it being an environment where I could achieve all my goals,” he said.

“It was a tumultuous period for everyone involved at Saracens but personally I had very little reservations in my mind about staying.

“I knew this was the place I wanted to be and I knew Saracens would be back competing for things. You only need to look at the quality of personnel.

“When I say personnel, I am not only talking about playing staff, I am talking about coaches, head office and support staff to know we would be back at some point at these type of arenas.”

Sarries were first punished in 2019 for repeatedly breaching the salary cap rule before their relegation was confirmed in January 2020.

After that, Covid-19 wreaked havoc throughout the world and Itoje