Poor Premiership season is cyclical, insists Mccall

Mark Mccall, the Saracens director of rugby, has warned that it would be “dangerous to jump to conclusions” on the back of an underwhelming European season for Premiership sides.

Hours after Lyon ousted Wasps, Saracens went down 25-16 to Toulon at a feverish Stade Mayol. Those Challenge Cup semi-final defeats mean the two European finals will take place without an English club for the first time since 2013.

Despite admitting that salary-cap restrictions may “logically” make it difficult for Premiership teams to turn that around in the near future, Mccall also suggested that a dip for

English clubs competing in Europe could be cyclical.

“I’ve kind of heard this before a few times, to be honest,” Mccall said. “Back in the day, it was because English players were playing too often. And then English clubs started winning it [the Champions Cup], that was because Irish players didn’t play enough.

“I think it’s always dangerous to jump to conclusions. I think we probably need to wait and see what happens next year and the year after.”

Mccall was at a loss to explain how Saracens, who were close to full strength, “didn’t cope all that well with the occasion” on Saturday. In a hostile atmosphere for the visitors, with Owen Farrell booed intensely as he lined up kicks at goal, France wing Gabin Villiere proved to be their nemesis. He scored two of the hosts’ three tries, with the other coming courtesy of a beautiful, slaloming run from Jiuta Wainiqolo in the second half.

Ben Earl helped Saracens into a 13-7 first-half lead with an opportunistic finish, but Villiere’s breakdown defence was highly influential. Eben Etzebeth, the South Africa lock, and a half-back pairing of Baptiste Serin and Louis Carbonel, two more France internationals, also shone.

Saluting the “magnificent” Mayol crowd, Mccall admitted that Toulon “exposed some flaws” that Saracens will aim to put right for the Premiership run-in. Understandably, he was tight-lipped on salary-cap issues in the wake of his team’s defeat. Asked whether Premiership clubs will struggle for European success because of the lower ceiling for squad spending, he replied: “Logically that could be right, but I don’t know for sure.”

More damaging on the night, he conceded, was Toulon’s ferocity. “I just think they took it to us physically,” Mccall said. “They were going after every breakdown. They got penalised quite heavily in the first half and that’s why it was 13-7 [to Saracens] at one point.

“[But] we never felt that we were in any control of the game. In the second half, fundamental parts of our game were really poor.”