Saracens vs Oyonnax match report: Sarries make hay before Jones arrives to harvest the crop

Saracens 55 Oyonnax 13

Chris Ashton dives over for one of his three tries for Saracens (Getty Images)

The greater intensity that has characterised the slimmed-down European Champions Cup in its new format since last year was absent in north London as Saracens toyed with the bottom club in the French Top 14, and Chris Ashton helped himself to a hat-trick of tries among eight in all for the unbeaten English Premiership leaders.

It was the sort of straightforward afternoon when Saracens could nit-pick about minor blemishes, such as coughing up a first-half penalty in their 22 when Neil de Kock and Schalk Brits got themselves isolated, or their famously voracious defence conceding only a seventh try in their 10 wins out of 10 in all competitions this season, when the Oyonnax wing Fetu’u Vainikolo plucked an interception from Charlie Hodgson with 66 minutes played.

By that stage Saracens were seven tries to the good – the seventh of them from the full-back Alex Goode who has many lavish skills but is not normally expected to burn off an entire opposition defence. As the Oyonnax fly-half Regis Lespinas put it: “They were too fast for us.”

Ashton dotted down three times at the right-hand corner to leapfrog Dafydd James into third place on the all-time European Cup scorers list with 30, behind Vincent Clerc on 36 and Brian O’Driscoll (33). Two of Ashton’s scores came from dabbed kicks by Owen Farrell and Richard Wigglesworth in behind Vainikolo who seemed utterly befuddled by this simple tactic. There were two tries too for Saracens’ Fijian-born Italy No 8 Samuela Vunisa – the second of them bringing up the bonus point in the 44th minute – and a pair of run-ins for Mike Ellery and Jamie George.

With the injured Henry Slade of Exeter out of contention to be England’s No 12 in the Six Nations Championship, might Farrell join George Ford in a dual-playmaker midfield? Whatever happens, Saracens’ Paul Gustard will be the defence coach, linking up with Eddie Jones’s England on 24 January for their fortnight’s lead-up to the Six Nations opener in Scotland.

The Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall has coped with significant people leaving before – Brendan Venter, Steve Borthwick, Ed Griffiths – but the loss of the “wolf king” Gustard will coincide with England retaining at least 23 players throughout the Six Nations, which for the first time runs parallel to a whopping eight Premiership fixtures.

So Saracens may lose as many as eight England players in addition to the likes of Vunisa and Scotland’s Duncan Taylor for a run of league matches from 30 January through to 19 March. That’s the price when you develop or buy top players.

But Gustard will be around for the tough, forthcoming sequence of Wasps, Leicester and Harlequins in the Premiership and Toulouse and Ulster in Europe, with a home quarter-final clear in Sarries’ sights.

Teams

Saracens: A Goode (B Ransom, 50); C Ashton, D Taylor, B Barritt (capt), M Ellery; O Farrell (C Hodgson, 56), N de Kock (R Wigglesworth, 50); M Vunipola (R Barrington, 50), S Brits (J George, 22), P du Plessis (J Figallo, 50), J Hamilton (W Fraser, 62), M Itoje (M Rhodes, 56), J Wray, K Brown, S Vunisa.

Oyonnax: F Denos (capt); D Ikpefan, G Bousses, U Tawalo (V Martin, 53), F Vainikolo; R Lespinas (R Clegg, 53), J Blanc (A Aziza, 62); L Delboulbes (S Wright, 19), J Maurouard (J Jenneker, 59), M Clerc (H Pungea, 48), L Power, G Fabbri (V Maafu, 50), V Ursache (T Bordes, 66), P Wannenburg, F Faure.

Referee: G Clancy (Ireland).