Mark McCall remains positive about Saracens chances of reaching the last eight of the Heineken Cup despite their defeat to Toulouse on Sunday.
The likelihood of the Aviva Premiership leaders topping Pool Three decreased after they went down 21-11 in France, but they still look good for advancing to the knockout stages as one of the two best runners-up.
"Obviously we are very disappointed - we don't think that we gave the best account of Saracens," McCall told reporters. "We just couldn't get any momentum in our play. In the first half we gave them their points cheaply; they didn't have to work hard to get theirs and we had to work unbelievably hard to get ours - and then we died a slow death in the second half as they got their noses in front.
"I thought Toulouse were magnificent, they were hard to play against and we got sucked in to playing a game that we didn't really want to play, in terms of catch up.
"[It] was a massive step up for us. They have a unique ability of raising their level for European games, but hopefully we can do a job on Connacht next Saturday so we can get the chance to prove that we were better than we were."
Toulouse secured their place in the next round with that win.
Matt Cotton
