Blow for Saracens as Owen Farrell and George Kruis are ruled out of derby clash with Harlequins

Blow: Farrell injured his back in pre-season
David Rogers/Getty Images
Chris Jones23 September 2016

Owen Farrell and George Kruis have failed to recover from injury in time for Saracens’ derby at Harlequins tomorrow.

Farrell, who injured his back in pre-season, was close to being declared fit but will not play against Quins, raising fears about his lack of rugby ahead of England’s November Tests.

A back complaint is also troubling Farrell’s England team-mate Kruis.

With Scotland international Sean Maitland also injured, Mike Ellery is on the wing for Sarries, who have won all three of their Premiership games this season.

Saracens’ week has been dominated by the fall-out from Chris Ashton’s 13-week ban for biting Northampton’s Alex Waller and the club were deciding today whether to appeal.

Quins, who will be making their first appearance at The Stoop this season, have one win from three games and are boosted by the return from injury of Wales centre Jamie Roberts. They have recalled Scotland wing Tim Visser, while Tim Swiel continues at No10 in the absence of Nick Evans, who is a week away from returning from fitness.

Quins’ defence is in the spotlight, having conceded five tries in the 36-25 at Exeter, but director of rugby John Kingston insists Nick Easter made the right decision to quit playing and become the club’s full-time defence coach this season.

Former England No8 Easter faces the toughest test of his new role tomorrow.

Kingston replaced new Italy coach Conor O’Shea and appointed ex-England coach Graham Rowntree to take charge of the forwards, with Easter becoming defence coach in what was initially seen as a player-coach role.

However, Easter announced before the season started that he was hanging up his boots after 281 games for the club in 12 years.

Kingston said: “I am getting a wonderful amount of input from Nick on the coaching side and it was the right time for him to move on.

“Until the Exeter game, our defence had been terrific so it wasn’t good enough.

“We have to learn and then take things forward and I am comfortable where we are in terms of the coaching group and the effort they are putting in.

“We haven’t been good enough in the last two weeks away from home, at Sale and Exeter, to get a result and you need to win away in the this league. The coaches are working well and having made changes things are not going to be seamless.”

Kingston is taking heart from Quins’ 29-23 win over unbeaten Sarries in this fixture last season, which ended a 15-game winning run for the champions.

“Nothing short of our best will be good enough against Saracens and we got it right last season — let’s see if we can get it right again,” he said.

“We respect Saracens but are not in awe even though they are the strongest team in England.”

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