Champions Cup roundup: Saracens face last-16 tie at Bath after defeat against Glasgow

Saracens will travel to face Bath in the round of 16 after being beaten 28-3 by Glasgow in their final pool match at Scotstoun. Most of the points came in the first half, with the Warriors scoring three converted tries through Ollie Smith, Kyle Steyn and George Horne while Saracens replied with an Owen Farrell penalty.

Seb Stephen then rumbled over in the closing seconds of the match to secure a fourth successive bonus-point pool-stage victory for Glasgow. Their reward for topping pool 1 is a last-16 tie against the Bulls on the first weekend of April.

Glasgow forged in front with the first meaningful attack of the match as Alex Craig carried them deep into Saracens territory with a lung-bursting run down the middle. Following a few phases of forward play the Glasgow backs then worked it through the hands for Smith to dot down.

Saracens, though, struck back quickly after Glasgow were pinged for going offside and Farrell made a straightforward kick. Horne looked to extend Glasgow’s advantage with a clever kick and chase down the short side of the scrum before being tackled close to the line by Max Malins. Saracens’ Juan Martín González was adjudged to have slapped the ball away in the resultant play and was shown a yellow card.

Tempers then frayed in the dead-ball area between both sets of players after Saracens had successfully repelled the Glasgow maul to win the put-in. But the home side were well in the ascendancy by this point and scored two tries in as many minutes to underline their superiority.

Horne was the creator of the first, his neat pass picking out Steyn who had ran the perfect diagonal line off his wing to score under the posts. The next try – Glasgow’s third – was set up by a rampaging carry from Jack Dempsey who then released Horne to score.

The home side were temporarily reduced to 14 men at the start of the second half when Kyle Rowe was shown a yellow card after being adjudged to have come in too high on Rotimi Segun as he and Steyn combined to bundle the winger into touch.

The home team finished on top and Steyn was stopped just short of the line, with Saracens’ Noah Caluori shown a yellow card in the aftermath. Glasgow, though, would not be denied and the maul drove over Stephen with the clock in the red.

Meanwhile, Marcus Smith’s late penalty secured Harlequins a surprise 27-17 victory away to two-time winners La Rochelle and a top-two finish in Pool 3, while the French side were eliminated.

Marcus Smith helped edge Harlequins to victory in France. Photograph: Lionel Hahn/Shutterstock

La Rochelle needed only a losing bonus point to book their place in the last 16 at fellow two-time winners Leicester’s expense but were undone by a late Quins flourish.

“The club and myself lost big tonight, it’s unacceptable,” said the La Rochelle head coach, Ronan O’Gara, a two-time Champions Cup winner with Munster as a fly-half. “It’s especially unacceptable when you see the number of opportunities we had to stay in the competition. That makes me even more frustrated.”

The 2022 and 2023 winners were pushing for a clinching score in the final 10 minutes when level at 17-17, only for Quins to burst upfield and break their hearts. Tom Lawday scored in the corner with eight minutes left and after Smith converted, La Rochelle trailed by seven points. That would have been enough to earn the losing bonus point but Smith’s last-gasp penalty denied them that and sent them into the Challenge Cup knockouts.

Last season’s beaten finalists Northampton leapfrogged Bristol into second place in the group as Italian wing Edoardo Todaro scored a hat-trick of first-half tries in an entertaining 43-28 victory against Scarlets.

The Welsh region had taken a surprise lead through tries from Ryan Elias and Archie Hughes but once the Saints juggernaut chugged into gear, they seemed to be running away with it.

Ollie Sleightholme and Craig Wright added to Todaro’s hat-trick but Scarlets bounced back through tries from Sam Costelow and Jac Davies to leave them within a converted try of the victory they needed to stay in the tournament. But Anthony Belleau scored a penalty and replacement flanker Callum Chick added a try to eliminate Scarlets and send South Africans Bulls into the last 16.