Saracens 30-13 Racing Metro

Saracens battled hard to record a 30-13 win over Racing Metro in front of a crowd of 18,212 in their home away from home.

The London club are playing a string of home games in various locations and they made history at the King Baudouin Stadium by becoming the first team to stage a European encounter in Brussels. After Olly Barkley and Charlie Hodgson had exchanged penalties in the opening ten minutes, Chris Wyles scored the game's first try on his 100th appearance for the club thanks mainly to a powerful run and deft offload from Schalk Brits out wide. Sarries were playing by far the more enterprising rugby and, after another period of concerted pressure just before the half-hour mark, Steve Borthwick thundered onto a flat pass from Neil de Kock and powered through former team-mate Barkley to score. And the nomadic Londoners were unfortunate not to add to their two tries late on in the first half as the backs continued to look dangerous and Racing had Bernard le Roux sent to the sin bin but they had to settle for a Hodgson penalty to leave the score 20-3 at the interval. Hodgson edged Saracens further in front at the start of the second half but Racing suddenly sparked into life on the hour mark as Juan Martin Hernandez launched an attack down the right flank and exchanged passes with Masinivanua Matadigo before flicking the ball inside to Juan Imhoff to score. Fabrice Estebanez slotted over the conversion and replacement Gaetan Germain added another three points with ten minutes remaining to cut the deficit to ten points but that was as close as the Frenchmen could get. Saracens sealed victory late on through Will Fraser after Hodgson took the ball flat and burst between two defenders before offloading to the flanker to crash over. The English side pushed hard for the bonus point try in a frenetic final few minutes but they came up short and had to settle for just the four points from their home game in Belgium.