Brad Barritt: Saracens to give captain pre-Premiership final test

Saracens captain Brad Barritt (right) won 26 caps for England between 2012 and 2015

Saracens captain Brad Barritt could yet feature in Saturday's Premiership final against Exeter, and will face a fitness test on his hamstring on Thursday.

The 32-year-old centre was forced off after 27 minutes of the semi-final win over Gloucester at the weekend and was expected to miss the Twickenham final.

"To be fair to Brad we want to give him until the end of the week," said director of rugby Mark McCall.

"With a hamstring injury he obviously can't train. He does have a chance."

The Irishman added: "He'll be tested on Thursday to see where he's at and he could be ruled out then, but we might have to wait until we warm up on Saturday to see how it is."

Nick Tompkins scored a hat-trick as Barritt's replacement in the 44-19 win over the Cherry and Whites last Saturday and will start against the Chiefs if Barritt fails to recover from his injury.

However, McCall intends to give the former England international until the last minute to prove his fitness.

"We'll see, but we won't do something foolish that means Brad has to go off after one minute," he said. "That's not the situation we want to be in."

"But given who he is and the efforts he's made this year, it's fair to give him a few more days. It would be a lift to have him available."

Barritt has a history of overcoming injury rapidly, having featured against Leinster last season just days after having a titanium plate inserted following a cheekbone injury, while last month he recovered from ankle ligament damage to face Munster in the European Champions Cup semi-finals.

"Brad does have this habit of coming back from operations - on his eye socket normally - before these kinds of games," added McCall.

"A hamstring's a bit different because even the bravest people can't do anything about that.

"If it's a grade one it's normally seven-to-10 days. That's always pushing it. His is probably a 1.2 rather than a one, so we'll see."