Saracens Director of Rugby Brendan Venter has warned his players that they will need to take a step up if they want to win the Guinness Premiership
Venter said that if they make the kind of mistakes they did against Newport Gwent Dragons in the final Anglo Welsh LV= Cup match they will not win the Premiership.
Saracens lost 23-22 and the result means that Saracens go through to a semi-final at Northampton on March 14 as they picked up a losing bonus point.
Had Saracens beaten the Dragons, they would have taken on Cardiff away on the same day but reaching the last four was Venter's target.
Even though Saracens remained alive in the tournament and reached Venter's target he said that the error count left him less than impressed.
"We will not win the Premiership if we play like that and I have told the players it's important that we learn from this experience."
"If we want to be the best in the league we have to eradicate those mistakes."
"There was no lack of effort out there, it was just that Newport adapted better to the conditions." he added.
Gloucester's head coach Bryan Redpath had praise for the resilience of his side after they secured their place in the semi-finals with a last-gasp 31-29 away win over Harlequins.
Fly-half Tim Taylor's last kick conversion after full-back Tom Voyce scored Gloucester's fifth try at the death handed them victory and enabled Gloucester to edge out Welsh side Scarlets at the top of Pool Two.
"I thought he was outstanding," Redpath told AOL Sport.
"He's been here two weeks training and did a lot of good things."
Newcastle director of rugby Steve Bates meanwhile had to defend his decision to give plenty of game time to his fringe players.
"The four weeks of this competition were all about giving some players a run and others a rest and that's worked."
Falcons failed to register a win in any of their four pool games.
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