Saracens aim to stop the rot with victory at Leicester

European champions Saracens will experience their worst run of results in rugby union’s professional era if they lose to Leicester today.

Saracens have not suffered eight sucessive defeats during their 22-year professional period, but Leicester could inflict that unwanted statistic on them at Welford Road.

Since beating London Irish in the Aviva Premiership eight weeks ago, Saracens have lost three league games, two in the European Champions Cup and two Anglo-Welsh fixtures.

There were, though, encouraging signs during last weekend’s 24-21 defeat against Clermont Auvergne.

Now Saracens prepare to tackle the Tigers on a return to domestic action.

“The Clermont game was a good step in the right direction,” Saracens rugby director Mark McCall told www. saracens.com.

“We haven’t been really unhappy with how we’ve been playing.

“There are good signs of us defending much better and attacking really well at times. But we have to be much more disciplined than last weekend. We gave away far too many penalties.

“I don’t think we played on Sunday like a team that lacked confidence. At times, it looked the opposite. The energy among the players was as good as I’ve seen in a while.

“It’s quite a tough fixture list that we’ve had in the last few weeks, and Welford Road is a great place to go and play, just like Clermont was.

“They are coming off the back of a few results that haven’t gone their way as well, but they are a very competitive team and are normally good at bouncing back, so it’s going to be a great game.”

England fly-half Owen Farrell continues as captain for Saracens for the injured Brad Barritt, with prop Juan Figallo starting instead of Vincent Koch. Flanker Michael Rhodes is set to begin his comeback off the bench following injury.

Leicester coach Matt O’Connor makes a solitary change from the side beaten at home by European Champions Cup opponents Munster last weekend with prop Logovi’i Mulipola gaining a start alongside front-row colleagues Tom Youngs and Dan Cole.

“We did a lot of good things against Munster last weekend, and moving back into the Premiership over the next couple of weeks that will put us in good stead,” O’Connor said.

“Saracens have been through the rigours of Europe too, so they are going to be battle-hardened and ready.

“We need to make sure that we make a couple of refinements in our game and that we put out a performance that is good enough to win the game.”