Saracens have started the season in perfect fashion – but winger David Strettle has warned the rest of the Gallagher Premiership that the champions are nowhere near fifth gear yet.

Strettle crossed twice on Saturday as the men in black came from behind to down Northampton Saints 38-27 at Franklin’s Gardens. 

That means Mark McCall’s men are one of only two teams alongside Exeter Chiefs to have started the season with 15 points from a possible 15.

Next up are Gloucester Rugby who are also unbeaten to start the new campaign, and Strettle is hoping for more to come.

He said: “We had to dig in with our backs against the wall (against Northampton) and full credit to the pack; they smashed everything that came near them and gave the backs quick ball to attack on the front foot.

“We’ve still got to put in a good performance for the full 80. We know we can do it as we showed it for 10, 15, 20 minutes here and the coaches will tell us where we’ve made mistakes and where we can rectify them.

“To get the win and to get the bonus point is really good but it’s back to the drawing board and hopefully next week we’ll get a ‘longer’ performance.”

Strettle’s double took his tally of Premiership tries past the half century mark, not that the 35-year-old was aware of making the landmark.

“I didn’t know that so that’s nice! Playing in a team like this allows you to perform well,” he added.

“When you’re on the wing you get used to playing week-in, week-out so to get 40 minutes at Newcastle and then have to wait and miss the home game was disappointing but it’s just nice to get 80 minutes under my belt.”

And McCall was pleased with the attitude shown by the entire squad as they claimed victory despite losing both Jamie George and Billy Vunipola to the sin bin.

"We are really pleased to get any kind of win up here. We got our noses in front in the second half but they showed a lot of resilience to come back,” he added.

"Our defensive maul was not good today, giving away two yellow cards, and that put us under enormous pressure and they got 14 points from those two situations.

"The rest of our game was in better order than it has been and we were much more physical and got over the gain line.

"We came back brilliantly when it really counted at the end of the match and showed our experience."