Saracens welcome London Irish to Vicarage Road on Sunday and welcome back David Strettle to the starting line-up for the Aviva Premiership Round 13 clash, kick off 3pm. In other team news, Carlos Nieto, Mouritz Botha and Kelly Brown all come into the starting XV for the London derby. The return of Strettle, who was rested last week under the EPS agreement, sees Michael Tagicakibau revert to outside centre and Gavin Henson named on the bench.

Speaking ahead of what will be his final game as Saracens Director of Rugby before moving to the role of Technical Director, Brendan Venter said: “We were very disappointed with the result last week against Sale and despite expecting a frantic and physical match, we just didn’t deal with it. But we have talked about that this week and I am sure those lessons have been learned.

“We’re looking ahead to what should be an excellent game between two very good teams. London Irish haven’t had the results they would have liked in recent weeks, but they have a squad full of quality players and a very good coaching staff so we are expecting a tough battle.”

Saracens line-up vs London Irish

15 Alex Goode

14 David Strettle

13 Michael Tagicakibau

12 Brad Barritt

11 James Short

10 Owen Farrell

9 Richard Wigglesworth

1 Deon Carstens

2 Schalk Brits

3 Carlos Nieto

4 Steve Borthwick ©

5 Mouritz Botha

6 Jacques Burger

7 Andy Saull

8 Kelly Brown

16 Jamie George

17 Rhys Gill

18 Petrus du Plessis

19 Hugh Vyvyan

20 Ernst Joubert

21 Kevin Barrett

22 Gavin Henson

23 Ben Ransom