Jacques Burger sympathises with Gloucester

Saracens flanker Jacques Burger has applauded Gloucester for their efforts during their defeat at Allianz Park on Sunday.

Sarries ran over five tries as they secured a 44-12 bonus-point victory on home turf in a match that saw the opposition's Nick Wood sent off after 73 seconds for stamping on the head of the 30-year-old.

"Hats off to Gloucester they came out and lost a guy early on with a red card unfortunately but they came at us really hard for 80 minutes," Burger told reporters. "I forgot how long 80 minutes is, it's a long time, and we had to stick at it, we had to work hard and fortunately we did that, we stuck to our plan and came away with a good victory.

"It is tough when you lose a guy early on, especially for them, but it's tough to adapt to that because all of a sudden you find yourself playing against 14 guys but not much changes.

"In the set pieces you gain a bit of an advantage because they had one guy off the field, it's just about sticking to your plan and doing what you would do against 15 men and we kept doing that and towards the end it paid off."

Saracens host Bath in their next Aviva Premiership match, while Gloucester welcome Northampton Saints.