Saracens vs Glasgow: Mark McCall ignores Dave Rennie’s mind games after accusation of trying to influence referees

Mark McCall has told Glasgow Warriors head coach Dave Rennie he “doesn’t care” what is being said ahead of this Saturday’s Heineken Champions Cup quarter-final after denying Saracens employ deliberate dirty tactics to distract referees.

Rennie’s accusations threatened to light the fuse on a rivalry that has developed over the last two years, not just between two clubs that knocked 10 bells out of each other in this year’s pool stages of the Champions Cup, but between two nations for which the memories of last week’s Six Nations epic remain incredibly fresh.

With Saracens favourites for the contest having finished the pool stages as the No 1 seeds, Rennie appeared to try and unsettle the reigning Premiership champions by accusing them of deliberately pushing and shoving opponents immediately after making a mistake in order to try and coax a response out of their opponents, which would occasionally result in the referee overturning his decision and giving Saracens a penalty.

“Often if they make an error it’s followed by a lot of push and shove from them to maybe bring the referee in to change a decision,” said Rennie. “We can’t afford to get sucked into that sort of stuff.”

Asked if he believed the ploy was deliberate, Rennie added: “Absolutely. I’ve seen Saracens do it. Saracens against every other side they play.

“We can’t be passive, but we’ve got to be smart around that sort of thing. We saw it out here. We had a decision go our way and then a bit of push and shove and Fraser Brown got penalised and they got three points out of it. It’s clearly a ploy.”

But he also backed this weekend’s match official, Nigel Owens, to handle any such tactics. “I think Nigel’s pretty smart, he won’t get sucked into that. He’s an experienced ref, so we’re not even sending any clips in about Saracens. He’s been around a long time… he’s good enough, hopefully, to make the right decisions at the right time and we’ll trust his judgement.”

McCall immediately denied the accusations, and insisted that he is not concerned with worrying about the Pro14 side ahead of what is their third meeting this season and a second quarter-final match in the space of three years, following Saracens’ 2017 triumph.

“I’m not sure why he would say that. It’s up to him,” responded the Saracens director of rugby.

“We made a few mistakes on the weekend and were really calm, listened to the messages people gave and got on with the job. We’ll do that on Saturday.

“I’m not here to talk about them or anything like that. We’ve got a good record over the last four seasons in these two months. We’ve won a lot of our matches in this period of time. That doesn’t mean we’re going to win on Saturday. We’ve got to do all the things we’ve done in these big matches over the last few years if we’re going to win. I don’t really care what they (Glasgow) say.”

The Saracens captain, Brad Barritt, echoed his coach’s thoughts.

“That is news to me. I have played here for 11 years and I didn’t know that. We talk about supporting our teammates and we like to show the togetherness and if it is an individual mistake it is about getting that guy refocused and back on track. The only thing we actively support is getting our teammates back on track and knowing we will cover them in the next phase of play.”

But Barritt did say that there is an “added spice” when it comes to Saracens and Glasgow. When these two sides met in a brutal encounter at Scotstoun in the opening round of the competition, Saracens emerged with a hard-fought 13-3 victory. But it also came at a large cost, with Billy Vunipola breaking his arm for the third time in nine months, his brother Mako and Nick Isiekwe both tore calf muscles and David Strettle broke his foot – on top of broken noses for Jamie George and Maro Itoje.

“I think there will be some added spice, as you know there will be a few feelings carried over from the last two games but we’ve been preparing well and really excited about the opportunity to play at Allianz Park in a home quarter-final,” added Barritt. “They were both very tasty encounters, both very physical. The breakdown was contested very hotly and I think the added spice between English and Scottish teams is always going to carry a flavour and a tasteful encounter. It’s something that we relish and something I’m looking forward to.”

McCall also confirmed that Itoje is fit to return to action with Owen Farrell and George Kruis this weekend, having not played since damaging knee ligaments in England’s opening Six Nations victory over Ireland and suffering a setback earlier this month in training. Itoje famously mocked Glasgow during that Scotstoun encounter by celebrating DTH van der Merwe’s disallowed try, which is just one chapter in a book of incidents within the Anglo-Scottish rivalry of the last two years that includes last year’s Murrayfield tunnel bust-up, Scotland’s Calcutta Cup celebrations following that 2018 win and last week’s astonishing 38-38 draw at Twickenham. However, Barritt is not advising Itoje to try provoking the Warriors again.

“It is probably not something that was pre-meditated or something that he would probably do again,” he said. “It was probably a spur of the moment thing and an individual decision. In the course of the game we had sustained a lot of pressure in that last 10 minutes of the first half and that is probably a little bit of over-excitement on his part signifying how hard we had worked to snuff them out and what a big momentum swing it was. It is not something we would actively encourage him to do again.”