Brendan Venter, the Saracens director of rugby, believes his team will benefit from their first Premiership defeat of the season, at London Irish last weekend, when they face Leicester at Vicarage Road tomorrow afternoon.
Saracens entered 2010 at the top of the table after winning nine and drawing one of their first 11 matches. With the Premiership at the halfway stage, a gap has opened up between the top five and the rest and victory over the Tigers would strengthen the leaders' grip on a play-off place. The teams in second and third, Northampton and Irish, meet at Franklin's Gardens.
"It is inevitable that you will lose games in sport," Venter said. "The test of a good team is how you react and I am sure we will be a better team for last week's defeat. We will learn from it and we are looking forward to meeting the champions in what we know will be a very hard game."
Saracens have based their game this season on defence. Irish became the first team to score more than one try against them in the Premiership and Venter's men have conceded seven tries in their 11 matches. They have only scored 14 tries, however, and they have managed only one in their last three league games.
"We are building for the rest of the season," Venter said. "The reality is that you do not win anything in December and January. You do not get any extra marks for being at the top of the Premiership and we are in the process of learning a lot about ourselves. We are happy to be where we are but we want to win the Premiership. We don't want to be happy at the end finishing in the top four and qualifying for Europe. That's not our goal. We are looking at what we need to do to win this thing in the end, which is to play really well against Leicester and the likes of London Irish, Wasps and Northampton.
"The reality is the top five sides are moving away and the bottom teams are under pressure. I think the sixth side are 16 points behind at this stage and it will be difficult for them to catch everyone up. But Leicester will be up there and we always knew they would be at the end."
Leicester have found tries hard to create this season, especially away from home, where they have managed only three in six Premiership matches. Saracens have scored four in four games at home.
Leicester will be without their England scrum-half, Harry Ellis, who suffered a reaction after returning from three months out with a knee injury when he played 20 minutes against Sale last weekend.
"It is a concern because Harry is a very important player for us," Richard Cockerill, the Leicester head coach, said. "The injury has not settled as we would have liked and he has not been able to train this week. We need to get the balance right in terms of how hard he trains. We are trying to manage the problem to see what makes it react and what doesn't."
England will announce their revised Elite Player squad on 13 January – Ellis was chosen in the original 32 last July, but he was replaced in November by Richard Wigglesworth because of his knee injury.
Northampton's England centre Shane Geraghty is on the bench for the visit of his former club, London Irish, to Franklin's Gardens. Geraghty has struggled since returning to the Saints after the autumn internationals and Stephen Myler makes his third consecutive start at N010, with James Downey and Jon Clarke outside him. The England lock Courtney Lawes is at No6 for Saints, who have not lost at home this season or anywhere since October. The England scrum-half Paul Hodgson returns for Irish.
