McCall delighted with super response
Saracens Director of Rugby Mark McCall was delighted with his side's 11-try response to their defeat in Toulouse six days earlier and can't wait to see who his team will tackle in the European Cup quarterfinals.
Still smarting from their 11-21 defeat in France, which cost them any hope of a home quarterfinal, England's current Premier League leaders got back on the horse after seeing their 10-match unbeaten run come to an abrupt end.
Connacht arrived at Allianz Park with just as much chance of reaching the last eight, but saw their hopes blown away as Saracens broke their European Cup try record of 10 and cruised past 50 points. In doing so, they also re-wrote all the 'against' records in the tournament for the Irish province.
"We're obviously very pleased with our response today after last week's disappointment. We were good in all areas today," said a delighted McCall.
"Our set-piece was excellent, obviously our attack was very good at times and when we had to roll up our sleeves and defend against them, I thought we did that very comfortably. This performance has been coming for some time.
"We have played nine games in the sequence of matches and we've won eight of those games, we've scored a bucket full of tries in those games, the players are confident and playing well – so as a response to last weekend today was perfect."
Saracens will go into the last eight as one of the two best runners-up, which means travelling away to face one of the two top seeded sides.
