Director of rugby Mark McCall admitted Saracens were made to pay for poor decisions as Bath stole victory in the last ten minutes of Saturday’s game.

All looked lost as the home side led 14-0 at the break, but the European Champions were a side transformed when they took to the field in the second half.

Once more, it seemed the match was all wrapped up when Ben Spencer scored to give Saracens a 21-17 lead.

Bath’s Semesa Rokoduguni had other ideas though, carving up the visitors’ defence to cross the whitewash twice, meaning Saracens could not even come away with a losing bonus point.

The performance was a far cry from round one’s dominant nine-try defeat of Northampton Saints and is perhaps all the more surprising given Saturday saw the return of Lions Owen Farrell and Mako Vunipola.

But, despite making errors which would eventually cost them the game, McCall insisted he was happy with his side’s second-half showing.

“After the break we changed and looked to have done enough to win, I’m pleased we made a real effort to win the game in that last attack,” he said.

“We were extremely poor in the first half and did a lot of poor things, we were disjointed.

“We made a lot of bad decisions on the ball, a lot of mistakes on the halfway line and we were unable to build any pressure or control field position.

“We had all watched Bath against Leicester, we all knew how good their defensive performance was that day and they now have some line speed that they didn’t have before.

“We made four or five big errors around the halfway line and it’s just not good enough against a side like Bath.”