Saracens fly-half Will Hooley hailed his side's youngsters for coming out of their shell in their 45-24 victory over Leicester Tigers XV.

Pre-season preparation is well underway for Sarries who are set to begin their 2020/2021 campaign in the Championship in January.

The London side put in a hard-fought victory in front of 1,000 spectators at Copthall Stadium and Hooley was particularly delighted with how the young players stepped up.

“Every one of them in the whole squad,” Hooley told the official Saracens website. “We really talked about it in the week about no one being in their shell, don’t worry about anything, it doesn’t matter if you make mistakes today.

“The guys looked like they were at home and that’s great and for someone like me at halfback to just have confidence around me in the forwards particularly because there was a lot of young lads there just makes my life easier.

“They should be really proud of what they did.”

Kapeli Pifeleti and Tom Whiteley both scored two tries a piece for Saracens, while Rotimi Segun and Dom Morris also crossed the whitewash.

It was a flawless performance too for 27-year-old Hooley, who kicked seven from seven, and the fly-half was pleased with how the side bounced back in the second half and built momentum.

Hooley added: “Really important, I think you saw we had a first half of really grinding it out and that wasn’t surprising because you work on things in training but until you get into a game, you don’t really know what’s going to happen.

“We struggled sometimes but I thought the way we transferred – they scored but then we were straight back on them is really good – and we’ve been working on that a lot in training transferring from attack to defence.

“I think we just got the feeling of the game and that people’s understanding was there and we gained momentum which was massive.

“I think Leicester probably had momentum in the first half and we had it in the second and we tried not to let go of it.

“Some outstanding play from individuals as well helped. As a collective I think everyone was very buoyant and had that momentum to push forward.”