Forward came off the bench to score twice in 51-25 success in Heineken Champions Cup

Ham & High: Ben Earl of Saracens (pic: Adam Davy/PA)Ben Earl of Saracens (pic: Adam Davy/PA) (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)

Ben Earl delivered an ominous warning to the rest of Europe after Saracens destroyed Cardiff Blues in the Heineken Champions Cup: “You still haven’t seen the best of us.”

The young replacement pounced twice in two minutes early in the second half to turn round what had been a tight contest up until then.

However, even then from then on the Men in Black dominated their shell shocked Welsh visitors, Earl believes Sarries still had plenty in reserve.

He said: “We said that there was a lot more in us than that first half but we were still in touching distance without playing to our full potential.

“There are still things to work on, even in that second half, but we knew if we kept grinding away and kept positive, we would be alright.

“It was closer to [the real Saracens] but there is still a huge amount left in us.

“The most exciting thing is we’ve got a good result without even playing even close to what we know we are capable of.

“We’ve got players to come back and we know we’ve got things up our sleeves that we’re going to be using in the next couple of weeks.”

Earl started a trend in the second half with four of the six tries coming from the replacements.

And while he played down his own importance to the comeback, he did admit the club and those players who start on the bench recognise their importance to the overall performance.

He said: “I wouldn’t say I made a huge impact, I was just in the right place at the right time to score two tries.

“It just worked for me today and next week it could be completely different.

“But we’ve talked about how the game has changed and how the bench has evolved.

“As a group we know we have to come on and make a difference, whether that’s just doing the right things at the right time or bringing a bit of impetus, and we all try to do that.

“We keep trying to bring energy.”

Earl pinpointed frustration as the main inhibitor to their first-half efforts.

“There were frustrations and that’s usual when you’re in that situation,” he admitted. “We just felt we couldn’t string much together.

“There wasn’t any ground-breaking or revolutionary thing that needed doing, it was just a question of us looking at ourselves.

“We just probably weren’t working hard enough but at least we still had 40 minutes to make amends and we did that thankfully.”