Vunipola's big chance to pay back Sarries for standing by him

No8 must switch focus to on-field matters as play-off race comes down to final two games

- Nick Purewal 

BILLY VUNIPOLA has been granted entry to the last-chance saloon on his English rugby career, cleared for action by both Saracens and the RFU.

The England No8 will no doubt stick to the soft stuff in a bid to end his 11 years at Saracens by propelling the Men In Black to a seventh Gallagher Premiership title.

The 31-year-old can count himself lucky that his arrest for resisting police detainment in Majorca has been met with kid gloves by his rugby bosses.

Now the 75-cap back-rower — and moreover Saracens as a whole — must vindicate the culture of offering “second chances, maybe sometimes even third chances”, in the words of rugby director Mark McCall.

Saracens face Bristol at Ashton Gate tomorrow, in the first of two final regular-season matches. McCall’s men sit second in the table, but the condensed standings mean that Exeter, down in seventh, could yet climb back into the top-four play-off berths.

Saracens have built their north London empire on bucking many of professionalism’s trends, specifically in finding a way to merge values from rugby’s schools of old and new.