How Owen Farrell inspired Saracens to Premiership final comeback and even surprised his own boss Mark McCall

The question that emerged from Saracens’ fifth Premiership final triumph on Saturday was not the normal ‘how do you stop them’ one, but rather how did they stop Exeter Chiefs?

In the four Premiership finals that Saracens have won since 2015, this was the first time that an opponent finished within a score of Mark McCall’s side. So the fact that Exeter were not just leading going into the final quarter but leading comfortably by 11 points was all the more surprising, which made the subsequent fightback to snatch a 37-34 victory possibly their most impressive feat yet.

When Saracens are forced to go to the well they tend to come up with the goods, yet against an Exeter side that was playing its very best rugby - at least for the first hour at Twickenham - it should have been impossible to come back into the final. Captain Brad Barritt had succumbed to the hamstring injury that was lingering over him heading into the match, Ben Spencer, Michael Rhodes and Will Skelton had all followed him off injured and replacement hooker Tom Woolstencroft was packing down at flanker.

“I think we’ve had to fight for everything we’ve got,” said Jamie George after scoring two tries in what was his fifth Premiership final triumph, with his winners’ medal gleaming around his neck.

“Overall, we’re probably disappointed with the way that we played but it doesn’t matter, we were the ones with the trophy at the end of the day. We certainly showed good fight and good spirit out there and dug in until the end. But the one thing that I will say is we’re led so well by Brad and Owen (Farrell) and the leadership group in situations like that. Especially Owen, at the time when Henry Slade scored in the corner, the way that he spoke he said ‘we’ve got a choice to make, we either roll over and die or have a crack at this’. He spoke brilliantly and he did the same against Leinster with Brad, and we’re very lucky to have those two.”

Farrell was very much the inspiration behind Saturday’s comeback. Following his rallying cry between the sticks after Slade’s score took the Exeter lead to 27-16. It was the fly-half’s short restart that returned possession for the defending champions and it was his perfect cross-field kick that Liam Williams plucked out of the air to score the first of three tries in the final quarter that secured victory.

Part of Exeter’s undoing came in that they started to believe they were going to win, as captain Jack Yeandle alluded to in his post-match press conference. But they were not the only ones who were starting to think that way, for McCall was beginning to fear the worst.

Asked if the fightback surprised him, McCall answered: Yes, it does a little bit. When you are 27-16 down and tired and it’s hot and you’re not playing well, you need to get something from somewhere. Yet for the last 15 minutes it looked like we had all the energy in the world. It was an incredible period. It felt that then that there was only going to be one winner at that point.

“But it hadn’t felt that way. At 27-16 they were celebrating like they had won it and understandably so. We could have been crushed but we weren’t.”

Saracens have never had to concede that before, at least in a Premiership final, suggesting that the gap between the top two sides in England is not nearly as large as many suggested before kick-off. The gulf that could get bigger though is the one behind them.

Exeter will hope that the post-World Cup arrival of Stuart Hogg gives them that little bit extra to overhaul their great rivals, but McCall’s side will be bolstered with the additions of England international Elliot Daly and talented Worcester hooker Jack Singleton. It is a duel that is coming to defy this generation of Premiership rugby, and while next season could well see a changing of the guard due to the impact that the World Cup has on international calls-ups - with the likes of Gloucester and Northampton looking in good shape to benefit early if their squads remain largely intact - the long-term future suggests that this will not be the last time Saracens and Exeter do battle at Twickenham.