Young: Delighted with win

Saracens, the defending champions, were back at the game's headquarters for the first time since their title win over Leicester in May but allowed Wasps to come from behind and take a 20-15 win with a late Tom Varndell try.

The manner of the victory delighted Young, who had nothing but praise for a team featuring five players making their debuts in Hugo Southwell, Chris Bell, Nicky Robinson, Marco Wentzel and Jonathan Poff.

"The first thing I asked was for 100% commitment and they gave me that today," Young said. "They showed clear intent to play attacking rugby and they did that. Sometimes they made wrong decisions, and our scrum was not right - but we overcame that.

"We played a lot of rugby, won the collisions and put them under a lot of pressure.

"Saracens had us in a stranglehold for a while, but our defence was good. It's one game, one win, nothing more, and it's Leicester next week."

The form of New Zealander Poff, who has arrived from Super Rugby outfit the Crusaders, was a particular highlight for Young.

"Jonathan Poff is a real find," he said. "He turned up only a few days ago, and his professionalism and intensity are awesome, especially in defence."

The only down side for the new man at the helm was an injury that forced John Hart from the action, but Young revealed that decision was mainly a precaution.

"We hope John Hart's knock is just a twinge," said Young.

"He wanted to stay on so it was not that serious. But I did not want an important player like that to have an injury worsened."

Saracens' director of rugby Mark McCall was bitterly disappointed at his team's failure to hold onto the lead after surging ahead after an hour.

He said: "We are normally very good at closing out tight games, so it was a bitter blow not to go on and win.

"But Wasps were more physical and gained far too many yards to put us on the back foot in the first half and towards the end, and we failed to get enough clean lineout balls."

Despite the summer signing of Sale legend Charlie Hodgson, Saracens started with teenager Owen Farrell at fly-half with the more experienced man only entering the fray in the second period.

"Charlie Hodgson has been with us for only a couple of weeks having recently left the England camp," McCall explained.

"Despite his experience, we decided it was important for him to have an easy start, but he'll be the starting fly-half very soon."

McCall added: "This time last season we lost to Irish and didn't even get a losing bonus point, so we will stay calm and work on what we need to improve for next week's trip to Bath."

Owen Farrell gave Saracens a solid start with two penalties in the opening 16 minutes but Robinson's try for Wasps on 20 minutes galvanised his team.

Christian Wade added a second for Wasps, finishing off a tremendous move after being released on the right following a combination between Riki Flutey and Bell.

Farrell reduced the arrears before Robinson made it 13-9 at the break, and although the champions battled back through Hodgson's two penalties, Varndell scored the decisive try late on when he held off two woeful tackles to go over.