Mallinder seeks big response from Saints at Saracens

Mallinder’s men suffered a 24-18 Aviva Premiership defeat against the Chiefs at Franklin’s Gardens on Friday night.

It was a game that saw the visitors take the chances that came their way, while frustrating Saints, who grabbed two late tries, for long periods.

And Mallinder knows his side must up their game if they are to bounce back with a win at title rivals Saracens this weekend.

“Friday was one game where you’d love to get four points, but we’ve got one point,” said the director of rugby.

“You don’t want to lose at home, but it’s going to happen and the important thing for us is to learn our lessons.

“We’ve got to make sure that when we go to Saracens, which will be a similar type of game, we improve.”

While Exeter lost few players to international duty, Saints were without eight, two of whom - Alex Corbisiero and George Pisi - are injured.

Saracens will be similarly affected this weekend and Mallinder is expecting a response from his team.

“Losing players to international duty is the nature of the season,” he said. “We came close on Friday night.

“We were putting the pressure on in the second half and maybe if we’d had another five or so minutes we might have gone on and got the winning score but we didn’t.

“We’ve got to lick our wounds and come strongly this week.”