Chris Wyles sees no reason why Saracens can’t seal a place
in the semi-finals of the Heineken Cup for only the second time in the club’s
history.
Clermont Auvergne stand in last year’s Aviva Premiership
Grand Final winner’s way but Wyles insists confidence is high in the Sarries
camp, despite going into the game as outsiders in the rugby betting
and last weekend’s disappointing defeat to Harlequins.
Saracens missed out on the chance to go to the top of the
Aviva Premiership table when they lost 24-19 to Quins in front of a
world-record crowd for a club rugby union match of 83,761 at Wembley.
Wyles said: “We’ve quickly shifted our focus to this
weekend. It was a hard loss to take, but at the end of the day we didn’t play
well enough and Quins deserved their victory.
“It’s quite nice to be the last English team left in the
competition and we just want to make sure we do as well as we can. I certainly
think that our squad is strong enough to keep on challenging on two fronts.”
Clermont have one of the best squads in European rugby but
have never made it beyond the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup and have a
reputation for being poor travellers.
The two sides met in the pool stages of the competition last
year, when the French side won both matches.
Saracens welcome back centre Brad Barritt for the
quarter-final after he was rested for the Harlequins game but former SouthAfrica skipper John Smit, who spent the
2007/08 season playing for Clermont, misses out through injury.
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