Mitchell's sure Saints have 'huge chance' of springing semi-final surprise

The black, green and gold will be big underdogs on Saturday as they travel to table-toppers Saracens in the play-off semi-finals.

Saracens finished five points clear of second-placed Sale Sharks, who will host Leicester Tigers in the other final-four clash, on Sunday.

Saints would dearly love to set up a showpiece against the Tigers or Sharks, but Saracens have been a formidable side all season.

Despite that, Mitchell and Co believe they have the tools to get the job done at StoneX Stadium, where they lost 45-39 back in November having led 39-17.

"For us, it's just about that consistency," Saints scrum-half Mitchell said.

"We showed this season against Saracens away - we went 39-17 up but then we just let them off for the last 20 minutes.

"With our defence, sometimes we take our foot off the gas and we don't realise the importance of that.

"If we show up for 80 minutes, we can beat any team, and Saracens are definitely a team that are beatable at the minute.

"They're a different team now and although we know they're an awesome side, when we went down there earlier this season we scored a few points.

"We just leaked a few too many points in defence so if we sort that out, we've got a huge chance to get to the final."

Saracens rested their first team on Saturday as they fell to a 61-29 defeat at Bath on the final day of the Premiership regular season.

Saints had the weekend off as it was their bye week and they have not played a league match since the superb 66-5 win at Newcastle Falcons on April 21.

"It's been a weird one for us because our last game has been a bye week so we've had three weeks off," Mitchell said.

"Fridays and Saturdays we're doing quite physical 15 on 15s.

"We're also doing little things like training on 4G pitches (like the surface at StoneX Stadium).

"We're not trying to focus on Sarries too much but there's little bits of information we can take forward into the game.

"If we focus on ourselves, we've got a good chance to go down there to get a good result."

Saints booked their place in the play-offs after winning 11 of their 20 league matches.

They finished the campaign with back-to-back bonus-point wins.

And Mitchell said: "During the middle of the season, we lost a bit of form, especially with injuries and things that happened to us.

"It obviously made us struggle but when the weather gets better, we like to move the ball and it helps us a bit.

"We get a bit of confidence and the last couple of games we've got decent results so hopefully we can push that confidence into the semi."