McCall’s men rocked to foundations

Saracens Director of Rugby Mark McCall has organised a forwards-only video session today and it is unlikely to be a pleasant experience for any of the invitees.

Central to the video nasty will be his side’s lineout collapse after bringing a 100 per cent return into Saturday’s tie. Munster, although losing two of their own, pinched four of Saracens’ throws and wrecked the visitors’ game plan.

McCall made it clear in the aftermath of Munster’s 15-9 victory that he held none of his backs to blame, not even Owen Farrell whose four missed shots at goal were crucial in a tight contest.

McCall reflected: “Your fundamentals and foundations have to be good when you come to a place like this, when one part of your set piece doesn’t function that well then it’s difficult to have those foundations and that’s probably the major reason for the defeat.”

Venting his anger, McCall promised to get to the root of the problem: “We will find out the reason and we will tell our squad, but we won’t be telling anyone else. Our problems were not behind the scrum; our problems were in the foundation of our game.”

There wasn’t a hint of disagreement from skipper and second row Steve Borthwick: “We just have to look at the quality of the work we did and assess whether it was of a high enough quality, my gut feeling is that it wasn’t. We were well below our best and it was a disappointing performance overall.”

There were no brash predictions from Borthwick other than to recognise the need for improvement: “It was a credit to Munster, it was always going to be a very physical contest and their pack was excellent all round. We’ve got another game next week and we need to be better, but I’m sure Munster will be saying the same things.”

Borthwick believes that improvement will come and figures Saracens’ returned internationals will benefit from an extra week’s training with the squad.

“I have to credit the guys who have just come off international rugby — Alex Goode, Owen Farrell, Brad Barritt and Chris Ashton; physically, mentally and emotionally it was a huge challenge for them and another week’s prep for players who haven’t been with us for five weeks or so will mean we will be all the stronger.”

Meanwhile, McCall is shaping up for another intense battle and is confident of returning the dosage in full measure on Sunday.

“If there’s something to fix, you go and fix it and that has been a huge strength of our club down through the years; I’m pretty confident we can act on that for next week.”

However, he has taken note of Munster’s tradition in this tournament and is aware of their backs-to-the-wall record.

“They’re fighting for their European lives; they have done it very well for 15 years and that’s why they have the record they have got, that’s why they get through to the quarter-finals (and beyond) so often.

“When they have to produce the goods they generally produce the goods and get the job done.”