Season's best for Sarries sets up Biarritz trip

The English champions ran in five tries in a 42-17 triumph at Vicarage Road to get their marathon Pool campaign underway. McCall's men face a 15,000 mile trip around six different venues in their Pool, including games in Cape Town, Wembley, Biarritz, Swansea and Treviso.

"We have been winning, but we haven't been consistent enough. That was probably our best performance of the season in what was a very physical match," said McCall.

"Treviso are a big, big side and they are massively improved on previous years. I've got a lot of battered and bruised players in the dressing room and it took us until almost 50 minutes to get our second try.

"But, in the end, it was a job well done and now we are looking forward to going to Biarritz. They are past masters in this competition and there were certainly signs in their game against the Ospreys that they are getting back to their best after the World Cup period.

"Imanol Harinordoquy and Dimitri Yachvili run that team and they were very influential once again against the Ospreys. They don't lose very often at home in this competition and so this is going to be a big test for us.

"We are going to learn a lot about ourselves, although our away from this season has been good and we've already won at Welford Road, Franklins Gardens and Kingsholm. It is going to be a very tight Pool and someone is going to have to pick up an away win somewhere."