Tom Willis shines for Saracens despite narrow defeat against Sharks in Durban

Saracens could not see their lead into half-time and after a sustained period of pressure Edwill van der Merwe dived over in the corner to give the Sharks a 21-15 lead.

Despite McCall fielding a rotated side, Saracens continued to fight and another Burke penalty cut the difference to three.

A yellow card to Dan for making head contact with Makazole Mapimpi proved costly almost immediately. One of South Africa’s newest stars, Ethan Hooker, burst free and offloaded to Grant Williams who used his electrifying pace to cruise over the line.

Saracens came again, invigorated by the deployment of Ben Earl from the bench, and scored their second maul try through the relentless Willis.

And so, with two minutes to go, Saracens found themselves within touching distance of an unlikely win and applying pressure to the Sharks line.

A first line-out from five metres out was surprisingly thrown short despite previous maul success. Fortunately for Saracens another penalty and a yellow card was drawn from the following phases.

This time it looked guaranteed the driving maul would be unleashed but Saracens failed to reclaim the ball to give them that chance.

Match details

Scoring sequence: 5-0 Kolisi try, 7-0 Whitehead con, 7-5 Dan try, 7-10 Spink try, 7-12 Burke con, 7-15 Burke pen, 12-15 Fassi try, 14-15 Whitehead con, 19-15 Van der Merwe try, 21-15 Whitehead con, 21-18 Burke pen, 26-18 Williams try, 28-18 Whitehead con, 28-23 Willis try.
Sharks: A Fassi; E van der Merwe, E Hooker, A Esterhuizen, M Mapimpi; G Whitehead, G Williams (J Hendrikse 67); P Ganyane (LM Mazibuko 58), B Mbonambi (E Swart 52), H Jacobs (M Mdanda 58), J Jenkins, E van Heerden (M Orie 73), S Kolisi (M Romao 52), V Tshituka, P Buthelezi (N Hatton 67).
Sin-bin: Hatton.
Replacement: J Hendrikse.
Saracens: E Daly; R Segun (G Simpson 69), S Spink (A Lozowski 63), O Hartley, A Hall; F Burke, C Bracken; E Mawi (A O’Driscoll 76), T Dan (A Onyeama-Christie 69), M Riccioni (M Street 55), N Isiekwe (H Tizzard 55), H Wilson (B Earl 55), T McFarland (O Sodeke 75), A Onyeama-Christie (J Hadfield 60), T Willis.
Sin-bin: T Dan.
Referee: L Ramos.