HIS side may have recorded a big win against Worcester Warriors at last year’s London Double Header, but Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall believes they’ll be facing a different animal on Saturday.

Saracens are the team to beat after wrapping up an historic Aviva Premiership and European Champions Cup double last term.

England-qualified powerhouse Ben Te’o is a huge coup for Warriors and is joined in the centre by Jackson Willison, a Maori All Blacks international.

Saracens have tied down a number of the stars, while South Africa legend Schalk Burger’s signature is a head turner.

Despite their huge success, McCall knows how crucial the start of the season is and believes Worcester pose the perfect opening-day test.

“Our players enjoy playing at Twickenham," said McCall.

"This year we’re against Worcester again and they’re recruited really well in the summer.

"They’ve got a really good core of experience now so it’s going to be a really tough fixture to start the season with.

“With Carl (Hogg) taking over from Dean Ryan they’ve got a new figure at the top, they’ve brought in some internationals and they’ve got Ben Te’o in the centres, (Francois) Hougaard at scrum-half. But also they have a deep, senior look to their squad now.

“These first six games are generally quite important, a tough run of games but we have our full squad available to us and there are other times during the year that’s not the case and we have to do without a fair chunk of our players for a period of time. While we’ve got our full squad we have to capitalise on that.”

Whether as front-runners or part of the chasing pack, Saracens have found a way to ensure they’ve been in the mix for the play-offs in the last seven years.

“We’ve been really consistent over the last three years in particular,” said McCall.

“Three years ago we got into both finals and we lost them both, we lost the last one against Northampton in the last second.

“We did well to respond to that two years ago and last year was great for the club.

"But the aim is to always give ourselves a chance at the end of the season, and to do that we need to be reminded of things that are important to us.”