Undaunted by what happened the last time he took his players to a well known seaside town to prepare for a match, Dave Rennie believes that following the well-worn football path of spending a week in Largs ahead of a big match will serve his players well.

Rowing boats will doubtless be off limits and while the Kiwi coach reckoned a trip to Nardini’s for an ice cream could be on the cards “if the weather improves”, the focus is on business over the next few days.

Not that they said anything else when they spent a week in the Cape Town sunshine last month ahead of putting in what Rennie has admitted was a profoundly embarrassing performance in permitting the Southern Kings, owners of the worst record in the Pro14 over the past two seasons, only their second ever win in the competition.

If a combination of environment and opposition meant they were a bit too relaxed that weekend, however, he agrees that for all that the mindset should always be the same, the prospect of facing England’s top team in front of a home crowd as the European Champions Cup gets underway should make it easier to get the mindset right this time around.

“I think it should be, but what we have focused a lot on is regardless of who we are playing,” he observed.

“Let’s have a respect for ourselves and knowing that we’ve got to work hard for each other and that’s what our fans expect and what we expect of each other. We need to be able to attack for each other regardless of who we are playing it shouldn’t matter, but there’s no doubt we know to be competitive on the weekend we have to be at our best, that’s what big sides bring out of you. It’s come at a good time and we are really looking forward to it.”

To that end he acknowledged that in taking the players away there is a slight inconsistency with the modern coaching mantra of claiming that every opponent should be treated with equal respect and that there should never be any variation in the standards being pursued.

“It is different,” Rennie admitted.

“It’s quite unique, you’ve got three different competitions running and then everything stops for Europe. What we know is in our competition you can operate at less than 100 per cent and still get a job done but you can’t in Europe.

“We want to have a chance to reflect on all the hard work we’ve done and where we’ve got to and little shifts we still need to make in a game and why that’s going to be important this weekend.

“Culturally we will spend a bit of time together and make sure that we enjoy the build-up to Saracens and obviously put a quality performance on the park.

“We just wanted to do something different, just to try and obviously make this competition special, a chance to spend a little more time together.

“We’re not actually going to train any more than we would normally train but it’s a chance to focus in with a smaller group for a couple of days and our full squad will be here tomorrow training and full squad training on Friday.

“Just a chance to spend a bit more time together and re-focus, reflect on where we are at and what’s going to be important heading into this other competition. We gathered last night, got our review out of the way and that allowed us to get up early this morning and get a few things going.”

In doing so they can draw upon having raised their game impressively against the best team they have faced in their domestic competition so far, when they dominated main Conference rivals Munster in the opening half of their encounter at Scotstoun.“I’m a coach so I’ll always worry, but we’ve worked really hard and we think we’ve made some shifts in our game against good sides, though you’ve got to be consistent for 80 minutes,” said Rennie.

“I harp back to Munster when we played them, probably the biggest name team we’ve played so far and our preparation was excellent and the line speed was great and that’s what you need in big games. We are going to have to replicate that.

“They (Saracens) will ask a lot of questions of us but it’s what you want. They’re a quality side, there’s not too many weaknesses is there (but) we’ve made some good shifts in our game we think.We want to play against the best sides in Europe and find out a bit about ourselves, it’s a great challenge.”

As to what happened the last time they spent a week at the seaside, he reckons there are benefits to be gained from that to, admitting: “I don’t think it will ever go away, it’s something to refer back to.

“Clearly it was a pretty disappointing performance and those that came off the bench were fantastic that day but we were so far behind that we made it difficult for ourselves.

“Little hiccups like that are not a bad thing, you get them early in the year it’s a good reminder. Certainly there’s no worry about complacency heading into a game against a team like Saracens that’s for sure.”