Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall hailed his side's narrow victory over Exeter on Saturday as an important one.
Sarries boss delighted with victory that keeps them second
Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall hailed his side's narrow victory over Exeter on Saturday as an important one after they ran out 17-13 winners at Sandy Park.
Owen Farrell and Charlie Hodgson scored tries that helped earn the reigning Aviva Premiership champions' third victory on the road this season.
And McCall was impressed with his players' versatility after they were forced to 'win ugly' against difficult opponents.
"This was a big victory for us," he said. "Exeter are one of the best teams in the competition at the moment and we knew that we had to master their physicality.
"We took our chances when they came along so it was a good win.
"We knew that we had to bounce back from the defeat at London Wasps but since then we've had three difficult away games at Bath, Leicester and now Exeter.
Pressure
"They have all been very different games and last week we threw the ball about a bit and won in a certain way.
"In this game we had to win in a completely different way. We had to defend, we had to wear them down, we had to soak up a lot of pressure."
Chiefs assistant coach Ali Hepher said 'silly mistakes' cost his side dearly in the final analysis: "We have learnt a few lessons from this match from the champions.
"They were pretty clinical and as soon as they had an opportunity they converted it.
"Unfortunately we just got turned over when we had our moments, when we had our momentum.
"We knew that we had to be error free but we made a couple early on and give away silly penalties which cost us. But we got back in to the game and there were moments when they [Saracens] were questioning themselves."