Abendanon: It’s not a nice feeling but we’ll be back again

NICK Abendanon was left gutted by Saracens’ stunning finale after his side had fought their way back into the match.

He said: “It’s probably a good thing I am not a betting man, because before that match I would have put my mortgage on us winning.

“The boys had the most belief that I had seen in the last two years and when we came back into it and it was 17-18, I thought we were going to do it.

“Unfortunately Sarries showed their class to finish off the game and I am just gutted for the boys.”

Abendanon, below, added: “Effort wise, we put absolutely everything out there. In defence we soaked up a hell of a lot of their pressure and they came at us wave after wave and we kept them out a number of times.

“Tactically I think we were probably a little bit impatient when we had slow ball. We panicked a little bit trying to get out of our own half and that’s when our strong hard kicks weren’t on the money as well as they should have been.”

Abendanon says attention now turns back to domestic action, with Clermont chasing hard for the Top 14 title.

“We still have two games left in Top 14, so we have got to show maturity to pick ourselves up and concentrate on that.

“We have to make sure that we come out with something from the season because during this Champions Cup campaign we were the number one team going into the final and just came up short again.

“This team has got a lot of belief; look we are there every year in semi-finals or finals.

It’s not a nice feeling but we will be there next year and have just got to hope that it will be our year.”