Mark McCall urges Saracens improvement

Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall insists that there is plenty of room for improvement, despite the Londoners’ dominant victory in the semi-final.

Sarries were too good for Gloucester on Saturday, scoring six tries in a superb 44-19 triumph over the Cherry and Whites at Allianz Park.

In a repeat of last season’s final, they will once again face Exeter Chiefs in the showpiece event, who dispatched Northampton Saints 42-12.

Both sides were impressive in their last-four contest, but the defending champions were particularly dominant in the opening hour of their game.

However, McCall was not happy with several aspects of their display and the director of rugby admitted that there were too many errors during the encounter.

“I feel quite funny because the scoreline does them a disservice,” he told reporters. “We need to be better at Twickenham next weekend.

“It’s almost perfect because we’ve won comfortably and scored some good tries, but still have a frustrated changing room. If we want to get the result that we want, then we need to be better. The players understand that.

“Ten minutes before half-time and 10 minutes after, we took advantage of some crucial turnovers. Our ability to recover the ball from kicks was outstanding.

“There were other parts of the game we too weren’t happy with. The first 30 minutes were okay, the last 30 minutes wasn’t good at all. We didn’t get past three phases in attack and we weren’t good enough at the breakdown, so there are enough things for us to fix.”

McCall also conceded that captain Brad Barritt is likely to miss the final after going off against Gloucester with a hamstring injury.

Nick Tompkins came on to score a hat-trick but Saracens’ boss says that losing their backline linchpin is a blow.

He added: “It’s devastating to lose Brad and it’s very unlikely he’ll be able to play in the final. Given what he’s given the team this year, it feels very sad.

“Nick had a phenomenal game. He’s been involved in every Premiership and European game this season. He’s been one of the players who has risen this year.”