Lozowski Returns to Saracens Disagreeing With the Verdict and Eager to Answer It

Alex Lozowski says he disagrees "as strongly as you like" with the decisions that ended his Saracens career, then concedes it "doesn't really count for much". On Sunday the Sale centre gets the one reply that does count: a match against the club that stopped picking him, played at the Stonex Stadium.

A farewell season that barely happened

Lozowski is 33 and gave a decade to Saracens. His last campaign there was thin. He turned out twice in the Prem, and a 10-minute Champions Cup cameo from the bench was all the action he saw after February ended.

The timing makes it awkward. His form in 2024-25 earned him a place in England's squads for both the autumn internationals and the Six Nations. He has five caps, the latest in November 2018. For the closing stretch, Saracens went with Olly Hartley and Nick Tomkins in midfield, and Lozowski looked on from outside.

The run-in he did not get

It was a strong finish for the club. Saracens won five in a row and were close to a play-off place, only to lose away to Exeter in a semi-final shootout on the last day of the regular season. They ended up fifth.

Lozowski calls it "a damp squib" and says "no-one really got what they wanted". He adds that he "wasn't part of it at all". His reading is one of shared disappointment, but the line that carries the weight concerns his own absence: he found the whole thing "bewildering and peculiar".

He admits the sting lingered. With 198 games for the club behind him, he says he thought a couple more appearances and a short run might have helped the push for the top four. That is his own recollection of his thinking at the time, and it is hindsight rather than a claim about what would have happened.

Disagreement without a grievance campaign

The tone is worth noting. Lozowski does not accuse anyone of anything. He says the club "have their decisions and their reasons" and leaves it there. That restraint reads like a player who knows a public argument with his old employers would cost him more than it won.

Nor is he pretending to be at peace. "Sport teaches you all kinds of different lessons," he says, adding that although it now feels like a distant memory, at the time it "sort of stings". Both feelings sit in the same answer, and neither cancels the other.

What Sale are asking of him

The more useful question is what he does next. Lozowski starts in Sale's midfield alongside fellow summer signing Joe Marchant. He says Sale wanted him to come and "add value", that this meant a lot to him, and that "now it's time to do that". He accepts that showing his worth to his former club, and lifting his new side's season, will drive him.

Sale have their own score to settle. They went down 65-14 on their trip to Saracens in October, then suffered an 85-16 defeat in the return game in April. A midfield that steadies those results would justify the signing quickly, though one fixture will not settle the case.

There is history pointing the other way too. Lozowski started the 2023 Prem final win over Sale, and his time at Saracens, bar a season on loan at Montpellier after the club's demotion to the Championship, brought plenty of silverware.

Familiar faces on both sides

Lozowski is not the only visitor who knows the ground. Sale's director of rugby, Alex Sanderson, put in 17 years at Saracens, first as a player and then as a coach. Brendan Venter, back at Saracens this season, was Sanderson's earliest boss once he moved into coaching, and Sanderson says he "idolised" Venter "to a degree" and shares many of his values and philosophies.

Sanderson also singled out Mark McCall's contribution, which he called "unbelievable". McCall led Saracens for 15 years between Venter's two spells. Venter has already received a fine this season for opting out of media appearances.

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Research: This article uses the archived evidence supplied for this story. Story inspiration: BBC Sport's original report.