Saracens director of rugby Brendan Venter will make a few changes for the opening fixture of the LV= Cup but claims they will not be “taking the competition lightly”.

Sarries narrowly beat Bath 12-11 in the Premiership at the weekend and the Watford-based club will face Steve Meehan’s men again on Sunday, this time at Vicarage Road.

Venter has regularly rotated his squad during Saracens’ successful start to the season but the South African will not be following some of his Premiership colleagues by fielding a weakened side in the newly-named Anglo-Welsh Cup.

Venter said: “We always treat every game as an even contest so we will put a strong squad out this weekend.

“We have some players who will be given an opportunity. I am excited to see Michael Tagicakibau on the wing, Michael Horak will be at full back and Kevin Barrett will be at scrum half.

“But we won’t be taking this competition lightly. Some sides play their whole reserve team in the competition. We won’t be doing that.

“When I was interviewed early this year, I said I wanted to win every game we went into.

“We feel we have a very good squad. We have a saying, ‘teams win games but squads win championships’ and we feel we have a very strong squad.”

The match will also be of special significance for stalwart Kevin Sorrell, who will make his 300th appearance for the Men in Black.

“The closer I was getting to the number, the more I was aware of it,” explained the centre, who joins Kris Chesney in becoming the only other triple centurion of the professional era for Sarries.

“It’s a great honour and something I am looking forward to thinking about, but only when I have retired from the game.

“I think it’s something special to look back on when I’ve quit playing. In rugby, you can’t really dwell on this kind of thing too much and in the future I will have all the memories to look back on. I will be proud of it at the end of my career but that won’t be my main thought [on matchday]. That will be about performing and getting the win.”

Saracens victory over Bath meant Venter’s reign has begun with seven straight victories in the Premiership – the best start by any team since Newcastle in 1997.

September’s 22-9 victory over Harlequins is the only time Sarries have won a Premiership game by more than seven points but that doesn’t faze Venter.

He said: “When I came in we knew we would always be competitive and nobody was having an easy game against us and although we have won a few games by a small margin, we have won all of them.

“We always said we would make it a tough game for every opponent.”

Venter was a World Cup winner as a player and has coaching experience with London Irish and South African franchise The Stormers but few would have expected him to enjoy such success so early on in his career with the Men in Black.

This week the former centre was named Guinness Premiership Director of Rugby of the Month for the second consecutive time following three wins out of three in October.

But Venter believes the award “doesn’t make much sense”.

He explained: “As I have said before, it is a bit unfair giving me an award like that because I am only a small part of our success because there are a number of coaches and around 40 players.

“So it doesn’t make much sense so maybe they should give it to [first-team coach] Mark McCall and if we win it again then give it to [skills and backs coach] Andy Farrell and so on because it is a group thing.”