Clark; Saints must reproduce semi-final showing at Saracens

Clark and Co battered Mark McCall’s men on their last visit to Barnet, claiming a 27-13 success to book a place in the league showpiece at Twickenham.

Since then, Saints have gone on to make it four wins in a row against Sarries and another victory this weekend would put them back in the hunt for top spot.

Jim Mallinder’s men currently sit seven points behind the leaders and Clark knows he and his team-mates need a repeat of their last visit to north London.

“It was a big result on the day,” said the flanker. “We were away in a one-off semi-final and you can’t expect to turn up and for it just to happen.

“You’ve got to earn performances like that and it took a lot of effort and hard work on the day. We’ll need to reproduce that if we want to get close to it.”

But Clark is playing down the fact Saints currently hold the Indian Sign over Saracens and feels it may actually be a bad thing.

He said: “You don’t pay much attention to that. They’re a mentally strong team and if anything it will probably energise them and add some fuel to the fire. It will be an interesting weekend.”

While Saints rested several of their stars in the Amlin Challenge Cup win at Sale last week, Saracens scrapped their way to a 17-15 Heineken Cup quarter-final success at Ulster.

And Clark is looking forward to seeing how the respective build-ups affect the two teams.

“They played a huge quarter-final and to go to Ulster and win is not easy,” he said. “That will energise them and both teams have got a lot to play for in the run-in.

“It will be interesting to see how it pans out.”