Maro Itoje stars as Lawrence Dallaglio tips Saracens for Gallagher Premiership title - 'The team to beat'

Lawrence Dallaglio labelled Saracens as “the team to beat” in the Gallagher Premiership after the reigning champions convincingly swatted aside Leicester Tigers 32-17 at the StoneX Stadium.

Sarries lost their opening two fixtures of the domestic campaign but got off the mark last week against Gloucester before the club’s returning World Cup stars drove them to victory over their fierce rivals.

Among those back in the starting XV were Owen Farrell, Elliot Daly, Jamie George, Ben Earl and Billy Vunipola, but it was second-rower Maro Itoje who grabbed the headlines with a barnstorming performance.

It’s hard to believe Itoje is still only 29 years old having been on the scene for what feels like an eternity, but based on today’s evidence, he has plenty of rugby left in the tank as he led from the front and powered over the try line to give the Sarries a lead they would never relinquish.

He was rightly awarded the player of the match, with TNT Sports pundit Dallaglio describing him as the standard-setter for everyone at the club and tipping Saracens to defend their Premiership crown despite sitting seventh in the table.

“He [Itoje] epitomises everything they [Saracens] are about,” Dallaglio said, live on TNT Sports. “Whether you’re an international or not, you leave your ego at the door when you walk back in and you put in performances like that.

“What that says for the rest of the squad, those up-and-coming players, they’re looking at that sort of performance having come back from the World Cup and they’re thinking that’s the benchmark.

“They are the team to beat, there’s one or two teams that’ll fancy their chances, but they are looking so, so strong.”

Leicester briefly held the lead when Jamie Shillcock slotted a ninth-minute penalty, but the Tigers had no response once the hosts found their rhythm.

Some brilliant link-up play between Earl and Aled Davies set Itoje on his way to ride a tackle and touch down for a rare try.

Farrell added the gloss with the boot and the Saracens never looked back or troubled from there.

Itoje, who watched the season-opening drubbing inflicted by Exter Chiefs in Paris, admitted he and the rest of the internationals were “very happy” to be back to help the club make up ground on those above them.

“I won't psychoanalyse it too much now, but in terms of the feeling, in terms of how we how we played, the energy of the team, I think it was tip-top,” Itoje told TNT Sports

“As internationals we are very happy, very excited to get back into the club. We love this club.

“We spoke about it this week, especially us internationals, we spoke about coming back to our club and adding.

“Obviously there was a little bit of disappointment, a little bit of frustration with how things ended up [at the World Cup]. We wanted more but we wanted to come back into the club and we wanted to add, we wanted to be positive.

“The boys last week had a top performance against Gloucester and we wanted to push in the right direction.

“The great thing about this club from the ownership straight down to the academy, we want to move forward, we're not settled with previous wins or previous championships.

“We want to keep pushing, want to keep winning. And for us, we just want to keep getting better.”

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