A play-off between two sides matched by intent more than playing strength never seemed to replicate the atavistic ferocity of the bout at Northampton on Friday, but the two London rivals had a go in a first half of thrills and spills, the latter taking the form of players being dumped on the ground in tackles.
Harlequins sensed an upset after leading by six points at half-time against a side chasing the league and Heineken Cup double. They had unsettled the seemingly imperturbable, winning the breakdown, hustling Saracens into making errors in the midfield and even taking an axe to the home side's totem pole, Jacques Burger.
When Burger, the man of the match in the Heineken Cup semi-final against Clermont Auvergne after making a series of thumping tackles that blew the wind out of the previous season's beaten finalists, was hit hard and fairly by the visitors' tyro prop Kyle Sinckler, it seemed as if it would be a seminal moment.
Owen Farrell kicked his second penalty from the resulting ruck after Sinckler, who had conceded the first, again offended, but the prop summed up his side's defiance by going for Saracens at their strongest point. Burger shook himself down and smiled at his opponent, but the home side became disoriented: Marcelo Bosch was sent to the sin-bin for lifting Nick Evans off the ground in a tackle and dumping him – Schalk Brits had earlier not been punished for doing the same to Sinckler because the prop had jumped in the air before contact – and Matt Stevens quickly followed him for a deliberate knock-on.
Harlequins took advantage by working a try for Ugo Monye, but at the point when they looked vulnerable, Saracens found strength and regained the lead with 13 men after boldly taking play through phases following another break by Billy Vunipola. They surrendered it on half-time when Barritt and Alistair Hargreaves messed up a move on halfway and Mike Brown chased Chris Robshaw's hack to the line.
But for all their strategy and cunning, Quins could not overcome the greater strength of their opponents nor an unfamiliar surface that, in the heat of the warmest day of the year, sapped energy when they most needed it and they conceded 20 unanswered points in the second half.
The referee, Wayne Barnes, was not quite as overworked as his colleague JP Doyle at Northampton, but it a few minutes into the game he found himself lecturing Danny Care about the virtues of sportsmanship. The scrum-half had ended a Saracens move by yelling for the ball as his England colleague and club rival, Billy Vunipola, made a break. Care duly found himself in possession, and if he had not broken one of the game's myriad laws, he had fractured its spirit, so Barnes decreed.
Care's colleagues seemed to agree with Barnes because they surrounded Chris Ashton at half-time after the wing had attempted to put off Evans as the Harlequin ran up for the conversion of Brown's try by shouting "miss it". It showed the game had an edge, maybe not as sharp and pointed as in the first play-off, but one that ensured the gap between the teams was nowhere near as great as the 20 points that separated them in the regular season.
Quins led 17-11 at the interval, their two tries supplemented by an Evans penalty. The normally reliable Farrell was more wayward off the tee, kicking two penalties but missing a third and failing to convert Brown's try, while Bosch was wide with a long-range penalty.
Both kickers missed opportunities at the start of the second period, but it was Care's missed drop-goal after 50 minutes that marked the turning point. The scrum-half has scored some opportune drop goals for England this season and attempted one from 35 metres on the left of the field. The ball appeared to be going over, but seemed to wobble at the last and hit the right post.
It would have given Quins a nine-point lead and it gave Saracens the jolt they needed. The home side started to get on top in areas where they had struggled, they gained a number of penalties at the scrum and Harlequins were harried into unforced errors. A third Farrell penalty quickly followed Barritt's try and the coup de grace was applied by Brown, not Mike for once this season.
Mike Brown did, though, go for an intercept on halfway that would have brought him his second try moments after Bosch's claimed try had been ruled out because the television match official decreed the centre was offside when picking up the ball following Farrell's chargedown of Care's kick.
Brown just missed the intercept and watched his namesake Kelly catch the ball and show such a turn of speed that when he passed the ball to Ashton, all the wing had to do was catch the pass to score his 19th try of a mixed season.
Mike Brown, worryingly for England, limped off with a hamstring twinge 12 minutes from the end, shortly before Farrell kicked another penalty to confirm that Saracens and Northampton are, by some measure, the strongest teams in the Premiership this season. The final promises to be a thunderous affair.
