Saracens boss Mark McCall believes Saturday's defeat to Gloucester may have been what his players needed before this weekend's crucial Heineken Cup semi-final against Toulon.

Sarries lost 28-23 and were far from their best at Kingsholm where the hosts dominated for large spells of the game and scored three tries through a Jonny May double and Ben Morgan.

A second-half score from Joel Tomkins, his second of the match, gave the Men in Black hope late on but Gloucester held on for a surprise victory. 

"There will definitely be things we can take from the game. Sometimes you need some gentle reminders of what you are about and what makes you successful," McCall said.

"Gloucester put us under some pressure from time to time. We gave away a couple of reasonably soft scores - some of our mistakes gave Gloucester their opportunities.

"We were 25-16 down, but arguably we could have won that game at the end. We fought our way back into it. The nature of our fightback and the spirit and togetherness is what we are about."

He added: "Toulon is a huge challenge for us, and that is the only game we will talk about for now."