This was carnage. Had Saracens maintained this pressure, this pace, and a standard of play touching on excellence, record numbers would have been shipped. It was 39-3 at the interval, it could have been more, and some woeful place-kicking had knocked ten off the lead.

For ten minutes, though, there had been peace: the Cambridge defence was brave, the hits ferocious, the Edwards effect in place. On 11 minutes, the dams burst.It began with a simple catch and drive, with Saracens skipper Jamie George taking it off the right of the maul. The second took only 12 seconds: the catch was taken from the kick-off, the ball was shipped wide, stepped inside, and Rodd Penney sprinted 40 yards unopposed.

Soon, Cambridge were off the mark: Steve Townend, the fourth man to start at fly-half this year, landed an excellent penalty outside the visitors’ ’22.But, when Saracens got the ball back, this was knife-and-butter stuff. Penney got his brace within a few breaths and four more scores came in the closing stretch of the half. A catch, a drive and an offload to the right gave George his second, before blindside Will Frazer found himself on the end of a string of offloads. George then completed his hat-trick – for a hooker? in half an hour? – at the base of another maul, while Scott Spurling charged over to signal the interval.

Where gaps were found, Saracens had penetrated; where there were none, they were made. It was rampant, irrepressible, and the Blues could only do so much.Halves such as these comprise all that is glorious and ludicrous about high-end university sport: the professional confronting the amateur, the balancing of prestige and success, and the perennial truism that even humiliation is absolved and forgotten by bringing down Oxford. Are these good things?

The second half saw change. Off came Saracens’ England U-20 stars and in their absence the Blues began to feel their way into the game. Initially, though, it was ‘as you were’, the physicality and pace of the opposition leaving the Blues bewildered. The absence of fast ball and even a third phase in attack, coupled with – as Matt Thomas might confirm – crunching defence, left Cambridge looking toothless.A series of deft Saracens off-loads following a mid-pitch turnover found the Blues under their own posts just three minutes after the restart. The large crowd must have feared catastrophe.

Yet, a 60-metre interception from Steve Townend breathed life back into the Blues. The back row, so fiercely punished in the first 40, began to assert themselves: Dave Allen forced a couple of turnovers; Ben Martin found the form of previous seasons. While not causing the Saracens defence too many headaches, there was at last some continuity in the Blues’ play. Again, Don Blake was at the heart of this; again, the Blues’ best player. He bossed his forwards at the fringes, exploited Saracens in the tight, and allowed the Blues a foothold in the game. It was from this kind of platform that Tom O’Toole chipped through the blindside defence and collected to finish in the corner. Another impressive kick from Townend cut the deficit to 46-17.

Cambridge controlled much of the rest of the game and final reward was given by Kristian Cooke’s last-minute try down the blindside. Respectability was attained; or, if not, then at least face was saved. Still, even if the pack deserved the riches of the second half, concerns remain about the lack of meaningful backline penetration, perhaps underscored by the absence of Rob Stevens.

The second half was a moral victory, but against an opposition of such quality, an upset was impossible. Final score: 46 - 22 to Saracens.