THE coaching staff at Saracens stood sombre faced after the game, Francois Pienaar ruling out the side's title hopes for the season.

Neither Pienaar, Mike Evans of Paul Turner could produce a smile after what the player coach described as a worrying performance.

They could glean few positives from the form displayed by the team on Sunday and stressed the need for improvement.

He said: "We did not take our chances and spoilt so much ball. We were very flat especially in defence and we couldn't get the tackles in.

"It is worrying to say the least and if we continue to play like this we can rule ourselves out as contenders for the title.

"For too long we chased the scoreboard rather than play our own game. It did not happen and now I am disappointed and worried."

The South African flanker said how he struggled with his form coming back to the side, due to the high pace of the game. His only positive message was that the game was a good open display.

He added: "We have got some good players but we now need to go back to basics. Although there are no easy games these days we have some particularly tough ones coming up so we must improve."

Paul Turner added: "Wasps were very effective and their first try after the break was a real killer."

Post match sentiments were unsurprisingly different from the Wasps camp.

Nigel Melville, the club's director of rugby, said: "This has been our best performance of the season and we have been working hard to produce this kind of performance.

"There is no reason why we cannot build on it especially after some very convincing individual performances."

He highlighted fly half Alex King, prop Will Green and hooker Trevor Leota as players of note on the day.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.