Sarries up against history
But while Mark McCall quite rightly professed to be "over the moon to go six from six in a pool like this" he will no doubt realise that no team that has emerged from their pool unbeaten has yet to go on to win the title.
Their 28-17 triumph over Toulouse in France took them to 28 points out of a possible 30 and guaranteed them one of the top two seedings. It also enabled them to join Wasps, Bath, Leinster, Scarlets, Biarritz Olympic, Cardiff Blues, Northampton Saints, Munster, Harlequins, ASM Clermont Auvergne and Ulster among the list of unbeaten pool winners down the years.
"To win in France, especially at Toulouse, is a very difficult thing to do and I am very proud of my players. I'm really pleased and looking forward to the quarterfinal," McCall told EPC Rugby.
"It was frustrating at times, we dominated the opening half an hour but didn't really come away with too much for all that domination. We had a few opportunities in the second half that could have made them lose interest, but we dropped a few balls over the line and close to the line.
"If you have things all your own way it's easy to play well, but it's how you respond to set backs that's important. We needed to show a bit of resilience and I thought we did that superbly."
The Saracens have only lost once this season, away at Harlequins in the Premiership, and will have to play without their Six Nations players over the next two months. But they will all be back for the quarterfinal, along with the currently suspended Chris Ashton.
"It's important looking ahead to the next eight weeks that we have the squad to cope without our international players. We made nine changes for this game, but didn't blink an eye," said McCall.
"I thought Charlie Hodgson had a brilliant opening 40 minutes and we took him off because he's going to be very important for us over the next few months. The encouraging thing for us is the age profile of the group.
"When you look at the forwards, who are performing week in, week out, they are all under the age of 25. They have all been built in-house and have grown up together, there's a great spirit among them and if we can keep them all at the club for the next three or four years then it will be very exciting."
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