Whatever the ins and outs of the Rotherham non-promotion decision, Watford's heart surgeons have cause to be grateful for the move to render the final weekend of the Premiership largely meaningless. At present Saracens have all the survival instinct of a band of lemmings, and had visiting the further reaches of National League One been at stake here yesterday, the fraught finale might have created ravages among their fans.
Even with nothing more than honour to play for there were still hands over many eyes well before Felipe Contepomi - a late substitute for Bristol, and facing a disciplinary hearing on Tuesday - lined up a penalty on the half-way line a minute into injury-time, and duly slotted it over to extend Saracens' losing run to six matches.
As Saracens had already surrendered leads of 12 and 10 points, and had just taken the lead thanks to two late penalty kicks from their fly-half Luke Smith, there was a touch of the inevitable about the Springbok's decision to kick deep, followed by Richard Hill's high tackle as the Bristol full-back Lee Best ran the ball back.
Afterwards, the prospective new hand at the helm of the very leaky Saracens ship, the former All Black captain Wayne Shelford, did not mince his words about the task that awaits him.
"The first thing is to teach them to catch and pass," he said. "It's the nuts and bolts of the sport and they must have put a dozen passes down. Still, that's a dozen less than last week."
Shelford is still awaiting the final details of his contract to be sorted out, but has been advising the team informally. He clearly has not liked what he has seen.
"They turned it over 35 times a week ago, so that's getting better too. There's not been a lot of discipline here in the last two years, and they've been playing very narrow rugby.
"They've been on the slide since they won the Cup, year-in, year-out, but they have the potential to make it back to the top six immediately."
Another priority for Shelford will be defence. Sarries drove well in the forwards, ably marshalled by Hill and Abdel Benazzi, but they were cut apart out wide by a Bristol back line, which included a debutant fly-half in the 25-year-old Matt Carrington, standing in for the regular incumbent Contepomi.
Each of the Bristol tries involved missed tackles by the Saracens backs; the most flagrant example of these was Brendon Daniel's try after 48 minutes, with three men in black sprawling as he danced down the left touchline.
The straight-talking Shelford left an ominous message for some of the Saracens players. "If they are not disciplined enough to learn, they won't be playing here. Some of the older ones might be hanging up their Saracens badges very soon."
The new broom, it seems, is set to sweep clean over the summer.
Saracens: Winnan; Johnston (Sparg, 43), Shanklin (Castaignede, 27), Sorrell, O'Mahony; Smith, Bracken (capt; Walshe, 61); R Russell (Harbut, 54), Cairns, Flatman, A Benazzi (Roche, 65), Murray, Hill, Roques (Chesney, 55), B Russell.
Tries: Smith, Shanklin. Cons: Smith 2. Pens: Smith 3. Drop-goal: Smith.
Bristol: Best; Daniel, Williams, Little (capt; Contepomi, 64), Cadwallader (Christophers, h-t); Carrington, Pichot; Payne, Nelson (McCarthy, 60), White (Bergamaschi, h-t), Archer (Brown, 38), Sturnham, Morgan (Oakley, 56), Short, Brownrigg.
Tries: Cadwallader, Daniel, Best. Cons: Carrington 2. Pens: Carrington 2, Contepomi 1.
Referee: A Rowden (Berkshire).
Attendance: 9, 726.
