Opposition view: Saracens' win against Saints 'soured' by second-half showing

Saracens boss Mark McCall felt his side's comfortable win against Saints was 'soured' by their second-half showing at Allianz Park.
Saints and Saracens scrapped it out at Allianz Park on Saturday afternoon (picture: Sharon Lucey)Saints and Saracens scrapped it out at Allianz Park on Saturday afternoon (picture: Sharon Lucey)
Saints and Saracens scrapped it out at Allianz Park on Saturday afternoon (picture: Sharon Lucey)

Saints were beaten 36-17 by the current Premiership champions, but they did at least fight back after the break.

Chris Boyd's men had fallen 36-3 behind but scores from Reece Marshall and Lewis Ludlam gave the scoreline a little more respectability.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

And McCall was not particularly happy with how Saracens stepped off the accelerator after scoring six tries.

"Overall, we're very pleased to have won the game, and to have got five points is great," McCall said.

"This group of players has done very well during the international windows, which have been challenging for us over the past couple of years.

"We've won four out of five games, got 20 points from those games and it's a great effort from the group.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"But it was soured a little bit by how we played in the last 20 minutes because we got ahead of ourselves and did things we wouldn't ordinarily do.

"We judge ourselves on effort and outcome, and the second half was very disappointing.

"We made a lot of decisions based on the scoreboard rather than what was best for the situation so it's a very frustrated changing room because of how we played in the second half."