An entire season of 135 games came down to a tryline stand just a few minutes before 5pm on this grey Saturday afternoon. So too did the consummation of a rugby club's story that began 135 years ago. For the first time in that long history, which began so humbly and remained humble for the next 120 years or so, Saracens are the best team in England. And no one could possibly complain at the end, so heroic had they been as they defended the encroaching Leicester tide.

For here was one side that know well the euphoria Saracens enjoyed come five to five on 28 May 2011. Maybe that was the edge that finally won the prize for Saracens – the sheer hunger to feel the high we have all watched the Tigers revel in so many times over the years. After the agony of their last-gasp defeat to the same opposition a year ago, in the same final, the intensity of Saracens' defence at the end was to be expected, but it was compelling to behold.

An unsustainable business they may still be off the field, and one still searching for a place they can call their own, but they have cracked matters on the field. All week they have talked about the tightness of the group. Nothing unusual about that sort of talk, but it counts for nothing until it is put to the test. Full marks to Saracens and a prize well earned.

Did Leicester lack that same degree of togetherness? They were flat here. Saracens showed all the ambition in the first half and when Leicester cranked it up in the second their efforts lacked wit and urgency until it was too late. It is a season that has tailed off for them, a trend continued here, and so it was the Saracens' coaching panel who were embracing each other wildly come the end.

The coaches' enclosure was housing three of the baddest boys in Premiership rugby. In the black corner, Brendan Venter, now Saracens' technical director, but missing from this event a year ago because of a stupidly harsh ban for his behaviour in the Welford Road enclosure a few weeks earlier. In the green corner, Richard Cockerill and Matt O'Connor, the double act at Leicester's helm, who may consider themselves mighty fortunate to have been at this final after the nature of their rantings at that same venue two weeks ago.

It must be something about Welford Road, because, until Venter's euphoria come the end, all three were models of restraint at Twickenham. So it can be done. Maybe they all just felt lucky to be here, Venter after his barring last year, and Cockerill and O'Connor after their reprieve courtesy of what is looking increasingly like a whitewash by the Rugby Football Union in their "investigations" after Welford Road II.

The RFU judiciary attributed their inability to take matters further to the unwillingness of, among others, the press to testify to the behaviour of Leicester's coaches. Well, the press gathered for their traditional end‑of‑season chinwag before the final on Saturday and conversation revealed that not one of them had been approached for testimony, relevant though it was, what with the Leicester coaches seated right in front of the press box on that fateful day. Some may consider, anyway, the written testimony supplied in the national papers over the days that followed to have been enough. Clearly there was a will not to have this year's final blighted like last year's by the absence of any of the coaches – and well there might be, but an awkward precedent had been set. Better not to sue for testimony if the likely result is what you don't want to hear. It has been an embarrassing and, frankly, shameful couple of weeks for the RFU.

Leicester were still being given the benefit of the doubt till the end here, with the referee Wayne Barnes awarding them a contentious penalty at a late scrum from which they launched that final assault on Saracens tryline. That it failed was particularly sweet for the man who deserves the final mention.

Several millionaires have swept into English rugby since the game turned pro, but few have been as patient and long-suffering as Nigel Wray. Saracens' methods have often been questioned during that long search for silverware, favouring as they have regular recourse to the big-name signing. But so too has their academy churned out English talent in that time. It finally came to fruition at five to five.