Departing Saracens director of rugby Brendan Venter is predicting a bright future for the club.
Booth convinced Exiles' fortunes will turn soon
Departing Saracens director of rugby Brendan Venter is predicting a bright future for the club as he prepares to head home to South Africa.
Sarries beat London Irish 12-6 in Venter's last game in charge but he was keen to look to the longer term.
Venter - who will still be involved at the club as a technical director and plans to attend games regularly - said: "The problem at Saracens was too much chopping and changing. We have a five-year plan in place, and it is ongoing.
"I may no longer be rugby director, but I'll be in telephone contact regularly, and I will be flying back to England regularly to attend games.
"We have academy players pressing for each position in the team, so it's not about bringing in some big-name stars, it's now about the development of the team from within."
As for the game, he added: "As I expected of my former club, this was a tough game. Irish are a good side, very organised, and they never lose badly, it's always just by a few points.
"But if you look at our fly-half, Owen Farrell, he is going to be special, and that really excites me.
"We lost a top international fly-half when Derick Hougaard was injured out of the season, and along came a teenager of this quality, a very talented boy who is learning to be a Premiership fly-half."
Gavin Henson made another appearance off the bench, but Venter insists that people are expecting too much too soon from the Lions and Wales international.
He said: "Gavin Henson is only beginning to know what Saracens is about. We are about intensity, and we are 18 months into that process, whereas Gavin has only been here a few weeks.
"We had so many very talented young players, but moments of magic are not what they're judged on. It's their intensity and growing as a team.
"Once he has settled in, it will emerge whether he has adjusted to this to everyone's satisfaction, including his own."
Positive
Irish head coach Toby Booth was disappointed to see his side suffer a 10th straight loss, but insisted on striking a positive note.
Booth said: "That's miles closer to ending this run. The Premiership is tough, and you have to work very hard. You need energy and intensity to put things right, and we have displayed that in the last three games.
"I do wonder at some of the questions I'm asked. We don't go out to throw a game. It's just that you need to deal with setbacks.
"We simply have to keep on track, keep doing the right things.
"If you look at the statistics from this game for both teams, the error count, the missed penalties, the turnovers, all virtually the same. That means that games as tight as this turn on little breaks.
"But teams like Toulouse, Munster, Leinster and Stade Francais don't change the way they play, and nor will we. We play with ball in hand, and that will inevitably lead to errors.
"We face Ospreys in the Heineken Cup next weekend. If we don't field the right team, we'll get thrashed. But we do need to get momentum to get back up on the horse and remain positive."
