Lotte Sharp says Saracens are enduring the most difficult campaign since she joined the club 10 years ago but stresses they have to continue building momentum in a truncated PWR.
Sharp, 29, previously captained Sarries to three Premier 15s titles with the club’s last success coming in 2021/22.
They were beaten semi-finalists last year by Bristol and after a strong start to the season winning their first four, their campaign unravelled with back-to-back defeats in November against title challengers Exeter and Harlequins.
Sarries were well beaten in December by two-time reigning champions Gloucester-Hartpury and despite getting back to winning ways against Bristol last time out, USA winger Sharp is open and honest about the scars they’ve suffered just ten rounds in.
Toughest Season Yet
Sharp told The Rugby Paper: “It’s been the toughest season we’ve had since I’ve been at the club. We’ve been having to deal with losses and that itself is a learning curve for a team that is used to winning.
“We’ve been having to have a lot more honest reflective conversations as a team looking at how we can develop more to adapt to the different types of teams that we’re coming up against.
“Going into the Bristol game it was a huge opportunity to get back on track. We managed to come out of it with the win which was what we needed to build and develop to move forward from there.”
Sharp feels the team’s biggest work on is their defence – an attribute that they were renowned for during their title-winning campaigns but isn’t up to scratch this season.
“We’ve had clear objectives from Mouritz (Botha), our forwards coach, and they’re still not completely coming to light,” said Sharp.
“We need to look at our double hits so we become the physical team we’ve spoken about being.”
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Managing Workload
This season’s Premiership is more of a sprint than a long-distance campaign with the season lasting only five months before the Six Nations starts ahead of the World Cup in the autumn.
Sharp praises Director of Rugby Alex Austerberry in how he’s managed the workload, adding: “It’s been tough having that big block of games before the end of the year but we’re lucky at Saracens to have such a huge depth of players.
“Alex has done a great job of rotating the team, ensuring players are getting rested and going into each game match fit.
“We did have a lot of tired bodies by the end of December, so the Christmas break was well needed.
“It’s great that we’re able to get this amount of games done without having that big break for the Six Nations which we normally do. That’s quite hard for the players who aren’t involved internationally.”
This year is a big one for the former England flyer who now plays for the USA. She won 11 caps for England between 2016-18 but switched allegiance in 2022, qualifying for the USA due to her American-born mother.
She said: “I’m so excited. It’s felt like a long time since I’ve been with the USA girls. I’m looking forward to getting back into camp with them after the PWR ends.
“Having lots of time together provides great opportunity as the USA don’t often get a lot of time together.”
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