Venter's Sarries Warning

Saracens director of rugby Brendan Venter has warned his players that their Guinness Premiership challenge will falter if they continue to offer performances like the one which resulted in a home loss to Newport Gwent Dragons on Sunday.

Venter's side qualified for the semi-finals of the LV= Cup despite losing 23-22 to the Magners League outfit at Vicarage Road by virtue of the losing bonus point they picked up.

They now travel to Franklin's Gardens to play Northampton on March 14 and although Venter was naturally relieved his side progressed, he was less-than impressed with their error count.

He said: "We will not win the Premiership if we play like that and I have told the players it's important that we learn from this experience. If we want to be the best in the league we have to eradicate those mistakes.

"There was no lack of effort out there, it was just that Newport adapted better to the conditions.

"But we knew what we needed which was why Derick Hougaard was brilliant for us at the end. I told him what I wanted him to do when he went on for Glen Jackson, and he did precisely the right thing.

"If we had tried to run the ball at them in that last 10 minutes and turned it over we could have thrown everything away.

"That's when international experience is so valuable, when a player knows the priority on the field and doesn't allow anything to influence him.

"But we did make an awful lot of mistakes after moving into a 6-0 lead early on."

Asked if he was surprised by Newport's performance, Venter added: "Absolutely not. I looked at their line-up and told my players they were in for a tough game."

Saracens scrum half Neil de Kock said: "We could have handled the end of the game better but we are in the semi-final now and that's what matters. We went out to win the game; we want to win every home game so it was definitely not a case of just playing to edge through by a losing point. If you approach a game with that attitude you invite problems."
Frustration

A crowd of around 6,000 voiced their frustration towards the end as Hougaard followed his boss's orders and kept the visitors at a distance with a succession of long-range missed penalties and three long-range drop goal attempts, all of which went wide.

Dragons wing Will Harries picked up the man-of-the-match plaudit thanks to a brace of tries, one in either half, to keep the Welsh province in front.

Harries said: "We knew that they kick the ball a lot so we had to be sure we dealt properly with the aerial stuff.

"We played very well in this competition away to Leicester without reward so to come here and win is wonderful for the whole squad. I'm delighted with my tries and what a fine effort we all put in.

"The only shame is that we were not going for the semi-final as well."