Saracens Women impressed both in attack and defence

Deborah Fleming hailed a ‘heroic performance’ from Saracens’ forwards after their 36-10 victory over Gloucester-Hartpury at StoneX Stadium.

The Women in Black hosted an energised side from the West Country and came away winners after tries from Poppy Cleall (2), Rocky Clark, Lotte Clapp and Fleming herself.

Sarries impressed both in attack and defence during a physical Valentine’s Day match-up with the Cherry & Whites, who looked much improved after falling to a 43-5 defeat in the reverse fixture.

With their 10th victory of the season, Alex Austerberry’s side remain top of the Allianz Premier 15s table and Fleming heaped praise on the work of the pack on Sunday both in and out of possession.

“Our forwards put in a really heroic performance,” she said.

“When people come here you want to show them where they’ve come – they’ve come to Sarries.

“We had a few errors and back in defence we came together really well. We wanted to bully them and we did that really successfully.”

Now two wins removed from the January loss to Exeter Chiefs Women, Saracens will look to cement themselves atop the league with teams below them dropping points.

However, Fleming said her side will be paying little attention to results around the league and instead concentrate on their own game.

The winger added: “At Sarries we are very focussed on ourselves and putting in a ‘Sarries’ performance.

“Obviously a few weeks ago we had a bit of an upset but it’s often you can reflect and think ‘right, we need to sort these areas out’.

“We knew what we were going to do and today we executed and came away with a deserved win.”