Gaffney: We paid the penalty

Saracens coach Alan Gaffney rued his side’s penalty count in tonight’s heart-breaking loss at Biarritz.

Sarries out-scored the French heavyweights three tries to two, but could only watch as Biarritz fly-half Dimitri Yachvili stroked over an injury-time penalty goal to steal a 22-21 win at Parc des Sports Aguilera.

Gaffney said: “I can’t say we were robbed, but I’m definitely disappointed with the result.

“It was very hard to live with the penalty count, but the last penalty was definitely legitimate – I have no doubts about it.

“I think we played some very good rugby tonight, and scoring three tries to one in France is always a good thing. When we did have the ball I thought we did very well with it.

“Now we’ll be able to see how far we’ve come by facing the challenge of picking ourselves up off the floor for the London Irish game next week.

“We have to put tonight’s result behind us.”

Gaffney added: “Although I think we played well enough to win, to concede nine penalties is not on.

“We lost Francisco Leonelli on Thursday morning and then losing Census Johnson on the morning of the game inevitably disrupted our preparation.

“But that’s professional rugby for you. We’ve got a good squad and I think we did very well to go on and take the game to Biarritz.”

Man of the match, Biarritz’s France back-rower Imanol Harinordoquy, admitted his team had been stretched to breaking point.

He said: “Last week’s performance against Viadana was not bad, but this week was better.

“But conceding three tries at home is obviously a big disappointment to us.

“We hoped that we would stop Saracens from getting a bonus point, so we didn’t achieve everything we wanted to achieve.

“They pushed us very hard, but we always knew that they would.

“Our challenge now is to keep focussed for the Top 14 and Heineken Cup games to come.”