England centre Andy Farrell faces three months on the sidelines with a shoulder injury.
Rugby league convert finished for the 2007-08 season
England centre Andy Farrell faces three months on the sidelines after suffering a shoulder injury in Saracens' Heineken Cup quarter-final victory over the Ospreys.
The 32-year-old World Cup player, was hurt in the first half of his side's 19-10 success and will play no further part this season.
"Faz will be gone for some time unfortunately. He has a total rupture of his AC joint so he will be gone for about three months," said director of rugby Alan Gaffney.
However, the Saracens boss hailed his players for reaching the Heineken Cup semi-finals for the first time and erasing a painful recent defeat in the process.
Turnaround
A full house at Vicarage Road saw the home side overcome pre-match favourites the Ospreys, with the Welsh side having thrashed them in the EDF Energy Cup competition by a 30-3 scoreline just two weeks previously.
Such a turnaround is unusual but Gaffney was convinced his young side had learned a lot from that Millennium Stadium mauling at the hands of a side containing more than half of Wales' victorious Six Nations side.
"Two weeks ago our guys walked into something they hadn't experienced before and they had 13 guys coming off the back of the Six Nations," he continued.
"International rugby is played at a different intensity to club rugby and they still played with the intensity they had shown a week before.
"We decided this time we wanted to play the game a certain way to make them come at us a bit more and we concentrated on not giving them easy points.
"We had been talking about it all week. A quarter-final in Europe is an experience some of them may not have again so we didn't want anyone to walk off thinking 'I could have done better' - and they didn't."
Accolades
Replacement Francisco Leonelli scored a try and Glen Jackson kicked the rest of Saracens' points but the man-of-the-match accolades went to veteran forward Richard Hill, with the England World Cup winner enjoying an Indian summer after 18 months out with a knee injury.
"Hilly is Hilly. People see him limping and he has only got 85 per cent range in that leg. He will never walk without a limp," Gaffney added.
"That's not a problem, it is just the way his leg is. He was phenomenal today and we knew he would be."
The Ospreys were left to lick their wounds ahead of their forthcoming EDF Energy Cup final showdown with Leicester at Twickenham, with Gavin Henson a major doubt after limping off with a knee injury.
Coach Lyn Jones, who saw replacement Paul James score his side's only try, insisted there had been no complacency in the camp though following the easy victory in March.
"That really wasn't a factor today for us. We just didn't play as well as we can do. There were a lot of unforced errors from a lot of individuals. We have an opportunity next week to redeem ourselves," Jones said.
"We have all seen thousands of games of rugby and it just wasn't our day today. And I don't want to take any credit away from Saracens, the way they applied themselves was how to win a game of rugby."
