Saracens vs Leicester Tigers match report: Invincible Saracens toy with the Tigers

This was wet-weather subjugation on the grandest scale by Saracens, who after beating another of the title contenders, Wasps, away last week, are looking utterly unstoppable.

No team had earned more than one penalty try against Leicester in the Tigers’ 136-year history; by scoring three yesterday, Saracens set a Premiership record, and even those with the longest memories at the north London club could not remember achieving the feat in any first-team match.

And for the victims to be Leicester – well, wow. They were the masters of the dark arts when their forwards of the 1990s and 2000s led by Martin Johnson sent the strongest of opponents weak at the knees.

Saracens? They used to fold quicker than an expert in Origami but not any more. Their opening penalty try came from a line-out drive in the 11th minute, with 13 men piling in to force Leicester into buckling. The other two came from scrums in the second half, when Saracens’ pack had the blustery wind and irresistible momentum behind them. It cost Leicester’s England tighthead prop Dan Cole a red face and a yellow card for his part in the front five falling away from the onslaught.

Considering Saracens’ other try to complete a bonus point, scored by the replacement hooker Jamie George a minute after half-time, came from another line-out maul, the set-piece domination was complete and Saracens have now won 15 games in a row going back to May.

There is dual consolation for Leicester. The league programme is only one third complete, and they have a handful of notable players to return from injury and rest, including Manu Tuilagi, who may reappear at home to Northampton next Saturday. Worryingly, though, they lost key forwards Ed Slater and Tom Croft in the first half here – Croft’s bang to the head may need less recovery time than the medial knee ligament injury to Slater that could rub out his decent prospects of an England call for the Six Nations Championship in February.

And while the joke may be lost on Leicester, imagine how good Saracens will be when Ian Peel starts work. Having left his role with England Under-20s, Peel is beginning a job-share tomorrow as scrum coach with Saracens and the senior national team alongside new head coach Eddie Jones. The latter’s forwards assistant Steve Borthwick was here to see Mako Vunipola, George Kruis, Maro Itoje and Will Fraser among those revelling in Saracens’ success, while Alex Goode proved yet again that with a tad more pace he would have all the gifts to be a world leader at full-back.

And how about Petrus du Plessis, the 34-year-old South African tighthead who is England-qualified by residency? With Northampton’s Kieran Brookes injured, he may think a Six Nations squad place is his for the taking.

Freddie Burns made some lively breaks for Leicester in his bid to extend the England fly-half conversation beyond Owen Farrell of Saracens and Bath’s George Ford, but after Burns had kicked penalties in the sixth and 22nd minutes, it was mostly one-way traffic.

“We always plan to rotate, and the thought process was to look after our squad – but there are no excuses, it wasn’t good enough,” said Richard Cockerill, Leicester’s director of rugby, who would have been bouncing off the changing-room walls, either under his own steam or with Johnson’s hand on his collar, if the Tigers team they played in had been humbled like this. “It is 100 per cent fixable before we play Northampton and it won’t be a comfortable week for the players or the coaches.”

Other words such as “graft” and “hard work” escaped his gritted teeth, whereas his Saracens counterpart Mark McCall paid tribute to the training-ground work of his assistant Alex Sanderson, and declared Kruis “an absolute dead cert for a starting position” with England.

Kruis has been calling Saracens’ line-outs while the club captain Ally Hargreaves has been injured, and was a protégé of Borthwick during the former England lock’s playing days here. With Paul Gustard swapping jobs from Sarries to England as defence coach for the Six Nations, it is logical to speculate over a wholesale transference of style from the league leaders to the bearers of the Red Rose. We will learn more when Jones names his squad on 13 January.

Saracens: A Goode; C Ashton, M Bosch, B Barritt (capt), C Wyles (D Taylor, 70); C Hodgson (O Farrell, 56), R Wigglesworth (N de Kock, 56); M Vunipola (R Gill, 62), S Brits (J George, 41), P du Plessis (T Lamositele, 70), M Itoje (J Hamilton, 70), G Kruis, M Rhodes (J Wray, 56), W Fraser, B Vunipola.

Leicester: T Veainu; G Camacho (F Balmain, 67-77), M Tait, S Bai (O Williams, 47), N Goneva; F Burns, S Harrison (B Youngs, 63); M Ayerza (L Mulipola, 54), H Thacker, F Balmain (D Cole, 54, Cole sin bin 66, Balmain 77), D Barrow, G Kitchener, E Slater (capt; M Fitzgerald, 30), T Croft (L McCaffrey, 22), L Pearce.

Referee: G Garner (Warwickshire).