Sarries to hit back hard

Saracens boss Mark McCall is relishing the opportunity to hit back at Munster this weekend when the teams clash at Vicarage Road.

The English side went down to Munster 15-9 at Thomaond Park last week, and McCall has pledged a much-improved performance when his team play host to the Irish giants this weekend.

Munster's win in Limerick drew the clubs level on 10 points apiece at the top of Pool One – Saracens the group leaders courtesy of a superior overall 8-6 try count.

Now Sunday's showdown is set to go a long way to settling automatic qualification for the prestigious knock-out stages, although Racing Metro are also right in the mix on eight points.

McCall said that his team is determined to set the record straight and exact some revenge for their frustrating loss last week.

"It is not often in sport that you get a chance to rectify what's gone wrong a week later against the same opposition – that is the beauty of these back-to-back matches," said McCall.

"We are confident we can play a lot better than we did at Thomond Park and we will need to. We have a lot of respect for Munster.

"Your fundamentals and your foundations have to be good at a place like that. When one part of your set-piece doesn't function that well it is difficult to have the foundations right," he said.

The Saracens boss wants his team to take control early on and keep the pressure on as they look for an overall improvement in front of their home crowd.

"We were well below our best and it was a disappointing performance overall.

"We got off to a poor start and Munster were obviously very motivated. We lost a couple of set-pieces during that time and it gave them a lot of momentum.

"It was a frustrating kind of game because when we did have possession they were quite happy to give penalties away.

"The penalty count was huge against them so it was some consolation that we got a bonus point at the end," he said.