Brad Barritt to face Premiership final fitness test

Saracens captain Brad Barritt is still in contention to face Exeter Chiefs in the Premiership final, despite being forced off against Gloucester with a hamstring injury.

The centre went off in the 27th minute and appeared certain to miss the showpiece event, but Sarries director of rugby Mark McCall is giving him every opportunity to get himself fit.

“To be fair to Brad we want to give him until the end of the week,” McCall said. “With a hamstring injury he obviously can’t train. He does have a chance.

“He’ll be tested on Thursday to see where he’s at and he could be ruled out then, but we might have to wait until we warm up on Saturday to see how it is.”

Barritt’s replacement last Saturday, Nick Tompkins, ended up scoring a hat-trick in the semi-final and McCall insists that they will not needlessly risk their skipper should he not be 100 per cent.

“We’ll see, but we won’t do something foolish that means Brad has to go off after one minute,” he added. “That’s not the situation we want to be in.

“But given who he is and the efforts he’s made this year, it’s fair to give him a few more days. It would be a lift to have him available.

“Brad does have this habit of coming back from operations – on his eye socket normally – before these kinds of games.

“A hamstring’s a bit different because even the bravest people can’t do anything about that. If it’s a grade one it’s normally seven to 10 days. That’s always pushing it. His is probably a 1.2 rather than a one, so we’ll see.”