Sarries chief salutes Brits as Quins are crushed
Saracens coach Brendan Venter saluted the display of South Africa hooker Schalk Brits as his side beat London rivals Harlequins 37-18 in the English Premiership at Wembley on Saturday.
Victory kept Sarries, who scored five tries, hot on the heels of leaders Northampton and second-placed Leicester although the title will be decided by a series of post-season playoff matches.
Brits, capped just three times by South Africa, may be out of favour with the Springbok hierarchy but he was in devastating form here, setting up two tries for Andy Saull and scoring one himself in a man-of-the-match display.
"Schalk is a special player and must be one of the three best hookers in the world," former South Africa centre Venter said.
"Without a doubt he's the most talented hooker with the ball in hand and defensively.
"If I was South Africa coach, there wouldn't be an issue. He's got something you can't coach. It's special.
"Hats off to an incredible performance by a hooker today."
Venter's view was backed up by Quins counterpart Conor O'Shea, who said of Brits: "He's an absolutely amazing rugby player. He was phenomenal.
"He's up there with the best in the world. His step, his speed, he's literally everywhere," the former Ireland international added.
Meanwhile Saracens officials insisted rugby union was not to blame for the pitch problems at Wembley.
Last weekend's FA Cup semi-finals at the national football stadium were marred by repeated incidents of players struggling to keep their feet on the Wembley turf.
That led to renewed criticism of a Wembley pitch which has repeatedly come under fire since the ground re-opened in 2007 following an expensive redevelopment that cost 757 million pounds.
Senior figures in English football believe the state of the Wembley pitch, much praised at a time when almost everything else about the old stadium was under fire, is a national embarrassment.
But Wembley chiefs insist just restricting the north London venue to staging football matches alone is not economically viable.
In 2008, a rugby union match between the Barbarians and Australia led to injuries for a pair of Wallaby forwards after repeated scrum collapses.
However, Saturday's London derby - the fourth and last match Saracens were due to play at Wembley this year and which produced their season's best crowd of 47,106 at the 'home of football - passed without incident.
The Wembley turf has been relaid 10 times since 2007 and Saracens chief executive Edward Griffiths said: "There are some issues with the Wembley pitch and football but those issues pre-dated rugby coming here," he said.
"Does anyone at Wembley hold rugby responsible for the state of the pitch in any way? No they don't.
"I'm very confident that Wembley can stage more than just a few football matches every year.
"It would be totally ridiculous if Wembley could stage only 10 football matches in a year. It clearly can do more than that and we look forward to coming back next season.
"Blaming rugby for the state of the pitch is a complete red herring.
"We're thrilled with Wembley, the playing surface has been perfect, though I know that's not a fashionable thing to say.
"The pitch situation has become a witch-hunt against the stadium but we feel the pitch is fantastic," Griffiths added.
Venter too had no qualms with the playing surface, saying: "Maybe the boots we wear are different to the footballers. It wasn't a problem today."
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