Saracens sweat on SA’s Brits ahead of semifinal

SA’s Schalk Brits could be denied the chance of one last home match in front of the Saracens’ faithful after suffering a hamstring injury in the European champions’ final game of the regular English Premiership season on Saturday.

The 36-year-old hooker is to retire at the end of the campaign, having been a key figure in the London club’s rise over the past eight years, including their back-to-back European titles in 2015/16 and 2016/17.

Saracens thrashed visitors Gloucester 62-12 on Saturday and will be back at their Allianz Park in a fortnight for a Premiership semifinal with Wasps.

But they may be without the dynamic Brits, capped 10 times by the Springboks, and Wales international Liam Williams who was one of seven try scorers against Gloucester.

“Schalk has a hamstring problem and Liam a shoulder problem. It’s too early to assess the seriousness,” said Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall.

Saracens scored nine tries — Ben Spencer crossed twice and they got a penalty try — against an outclassed Gloucester, but McCall was far from happy.

“We didn’t work hard enough in the first half and they scored two wonderful tries,” he said.

“They were terrible for us though so we spoke at half-time that we needed to take it to a higher level,” the former Ireland international added.

“We learnt a good lesson at Leinster in the [European] Champions Cup as it showed you don’t get any second chances and you can’t afford to switch off momentarily.”

Saturday’s final round of regular-season league games saw Wasps win 39-22 at Newcastle.

Exeter ran in six tries as they pulled away late on to win 41-17 at Harlequins.

One of those tries was a superb score by 21-year-old flyhalf Joe Simmonds, who is vying for the No 10 shirt with veteran playmaker Gareth Steenson.