Saracens hit a Sped bump

Ben landed five kicks to add to a long-range Spedding penalty to make it 18-13.

Farrell maintained his 100 per cent record to cut the deficit to two points before Nick Abendanon was sent to the sin-bin for taking a man out in the air at the restart.

Saracens made Clermont pay when Sean Maitland’s mazy run piled on the pressure deep in the home 22, before the ball was worked wide for Alex Lozowski to touch down.

Juan Figallo then received a yellow card after failing to roll away at a ruck and that offence allowed Parra to draw Clermont level.

With the match on the line, the hosts earned a scrum penalty in the closing minutes and Spedding smacked it over from long range.

Saracens will be disappointed that they could not build on their early dominance, but McCall is confident his side are close to turning a corner and getting the victory that has proved elusive in recent weeks.

He is also backing his team to reach the last eight, despite trailing Clermont by seven points and the Ospreys by two in the Pool Two standings.

“We’ve got a good chance in the last two games to get ourselves into a qualifying position for the knockout stages, which is what we want,” said McCall.

“Of course we can improve and have to if we want to win games like that. There’s improvement in us for definite.

“We all know that we’re going to get through this patch, whether it’s next week in Leicester or the week after against Worcester.”