The Premiership seems to be hurtling towards an inevitable finale. The top two positions are all but confirmed, if not mathematically, certainly on form. Saracens took their third ominous win of the holiday season. If we thought their dismantling of Leicester just before Christmas was impressive, winning at Gloucester like this would have been unheard of not so long ago.
But these are dark days at Kingsholm. Gloucester have suffered humiliation here already this season, but this was a new low, even more comprehensive than the defeat Exeter inflicted on them in the autumn. It is difficult to know where to start in describing Gloucester's deficiencies, which have now spread from their front five right across the rest of the team. The wonder is that Saracens did not score a bonus-point try; it felt as if they had a few times over.
Nevertheless, perhaps the most damning indictment was that, with the game long gone, Saracens negotiated eight minutes, midway through the second half, with 13 men and won the period 3-0. It included a scrum on their own five-metre line, when, with seven men, they blitzed Gloucester to win a penalty.
One plus for Gloucester – and probably the only one – was that they did not have to play the game with 14 men, as they had in the reverse fixture on the second weekend of the season, when Nick Wood was shown a red card at the start. Mind you, Jimmy Cowan did see yellow in the fourth minute, so the respite was mitigated.
That came after the Gloucester scrum-half had flopped on the ball when Billy Vunipola crashed to within a yard or two in the first of what was to be an avalanche of Saracens attacks. Owen Farrell landed the penalty for an early lead before Neil de Kock, Cowan's opposite man, scored Saracens' first try. The brilliant Schalk Brits did his hooker-cum-centre thing when he took advantage of Cowan's absence to peel off from a maul and send De Kock on a clear run to the corner – 8-0 after as many minutes.
Brits was involved again for Saracens' second, which had the air of a training-ground frolic, so easy did it look. The ball fizzed out to the left – through the hands of Saracens' England backs, Farrell, Brad Barritt (returning for his first start since the opening weekend) and Alex Goode – where Brits dummied this way and that, finally releasing David Strettle for another simple run-in.
That was to be Saracens' last try of the half, but it felt as if they were running them in from all angles. At times, it was as if they were taking it in turns to have a run through the Gloucester defence. And the handling was so deft and ambitious that it is hard to think of a player who did not feel the ball in their hands. Maybe James Johnston.
But Johnston was playing his part. The Saracens scrum was totally dominant, even if Johnston had gone by the time the pack won that crucial penalty with Vunipola and Steve Borthwick off.
It was pressure at the set piece that led to Saracens' third try, eight minutes after the break. Again, training ground came to mind, as simple hands from a scrum sent Goode ghosting past Charlie Sharples. At that point, the bonus point seemed a foregone conclusion.
Instead, it was Gloucester who scored the game's only other try, but at 29-3 down it was neither here nor there. For the record, Matt Cox drove over from a lineout with 10 minutes to go. Window dressing. Gloucester's problems are chronic and were glossed over by their holiday wins over the league's bottom two sides. Saracens, though, are at the other end of the spectrum – and table. Expect to see them and Northampton at Twickenham in May.
