Saracens’ director of rugby Mark McCall was disappointed with his side’s second-half performance despite securing a 36-17 victory over Northampton Saints.

The second-placed side continued their imperious home form after Sean Maitland’s double was supplemented by tries from Nick Tompkins, David Strettle and Tom Woolstencroft.

After extending their lead with a penalty try after the break, tries from Reece Marshall and Lewis Ludlam reduced the deficit as Saints won the second half 14-7.

Despite getting the win and the five points to close the gap on Gallagher Premiership leaders Exeter Chiefs, McCall lamented the team’s inability to produce 80 minutes of efficient rugby.
“Overall, we’re very pleased to have won the game and to have got five points is great,” he said.
“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.”

McCall added that the team’s huge lead meant their focus suffered, commenting: “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.”

Try-scorer Woolstencroft was more positive about the result, with the hooker saying: “We knew it was all about getting a good start, getting our mentality right, coming out of the blocks and firing the first shots – I thought we did that.

“It was an awesome victory for us.”