Relieved: Mark McCall

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• Saracens

Saracens boss Mark McCall believes his team deserved their 17-16 Premiership win over Northampton despite the late intervention of the woodwork.

Saints fly-half Stephen Myler's valiant injury time penalty attempt, taken five metres from inside his own half, struck the cross-bar which ensured the victory for Sarries.

But a relieved McCall feels it was the right outcome as his side were more dominant.

"Of course it would have been a sick feeling to lose it at the end," McCall said.

"Sometimes you lose and that is fine but when you are on top, like we felt we were on top, it would have been disappointing.

"At the same time sometimes that is your own fault, if you have got ahead of yourselves and not done things quite right.

"I felt the same as everyone else felt. It was out of our hands. We knew it was a very difficult kick. It was an unbelievable strike in fairness.

"He had his kicking boots on today, didn't he? So we are grateful to have come away with a narrow victory."

Northampton director of rugby Jim Mallinder criticised referee JP Doyle's performance.

"I've already had a little look at the penalties on replay and the majority of those early on were probably just," he said.

"But the referee's got to be consistent and if he's going to penalise Dylan Hartley for going off his feet, quite rightly, he's got to do Brad Barritt at the end of the game as well. It's the same offence."

This defeat means Saints drop down to sixth position in the standings - two points adrift of the play-off places - but Mallinder is still optimistic about his team's title chances.

"The lads gave everything and it was a tremendous effort from them. I'm very proud. It went down to the wire, we just didn't get the bounce of the ball," he said.

"We'd like to be top of the league like every single club, but we're realistic and know that we haven't played as well as we'd have liked in every game.

"But we also know that we're a good side and today proved that. There's not a lot in the top teams. Even though we're in mid-table, we're not out of the running.

"There were will be a few people that have written us off. We quite like that and there's a long way to go. We're looking forward to the second half of the season."