Saracens 18 Worcester Warriors 6 (From Worcester News)

Saracens 18 Worcester Warriors 6

7:40pm Sunday 18th September 2011 in Match Reports By Tom Guest, @tomguestWN #WENsport

IF Worcester Warriors are relegated — or, for the more positive of Sixways supporters out there, miss out on European qualification — by a single point this season, Richard Hill will rightly be able to look back on this match as a huge injustice.

In the grand scheme of things, a solitary point can make the difference between Aviva Premiership success and failure.

Hopefully, it won’t prove too costly at the end of a long campaign, but head coach Hill could feel rightly aggrieved.

Having seen his side go toe-to-toe with the defending champions on their home patch, Warriors were good value for their interval lead, which came courtesy of two Andy Goode three-pointers compared to one from Charlie Hodgson.

With the two all-time leading Premiership points-scorers facing off at fly-half, it was perhaps fitting the first-half was about kicking the ball rather than running with it.

However, Sarries came out firing after the break and showed why they are so hard to beat but, despite Hodgson levelling with a penalty after 43 minutes, Warriors were still holding their own.

But what is the point of having television match officials (TMOs) if the referees decide not to call upon their services?

I’m all for keeping the game flowing and there’s clearly no point in unnecessarily delaying matches for nervy refs to check their judgements with the man upstairs when it is a clear-cut decision.

The man in the middle at Vicarage Road, Llyr Apgeraint-Roberts, was happy to trust his touch judge when David Strettle scooted past Marcel Garvey’s poor tackle to score in the corner in the 52nd minute.

That was a great call from the man with the flag as, although Strettle flirted closely with the whitewash, it was a legitimate score — after the hindsight of replays.

The travesty for Warriors, though, came some 10 minutes later when Sarries centre Brad Barritt crashed towards the try line.

Even to the naked eye, it looked impossible to tell whether the ball was grounded amid a mass of bodies — not to mention the fact it looked suspiciously like a double movement in the act of ‘scoring’.

Regardless, the official awarded the try without a second thought and Saracens were out of sight as far as a Worcester losing bonus point was concerned.

So you can imagine Hill’s displeasure when replays suggested Barritt was short of the line with the ball.

Hodgson added the undeserved extras and Sarries won by 12 points. A final scoreline of 11-6 to the hosts would have been a fair reflection on the game as, without playing particularly well, Warriors at least deserved to take a point for their efforts.