Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall rued a slow start as his side suffered a 24-18 defeat at Leicester Tigers.

Despite the defeat, Saracens still have a seven-point lead at the top of the Premiership.

Sale lie in second place and their fixture at the AJ Bell Stadium in a fortnight's time will have a huge bearing on which team finishes top at the end of the regular season.

McCall, who saw Eroni Mawi and Alex Lewington score tries as they fought back, said: "We should have won that game and, although we were up against heroic last-ditch defence, we had five or six chances to score but didn't do so.

"Definitely we have to do better than that, but I'm pleased at the how the players responded to being 24-3 down and our senior players were superb.

"However, it was an incredibly poor start as we gave away two 50-metre tries in the first 12 minutes, but it will still be a good learning curve for some of our youngsters."

Former England full-back Mike Brown made his debut for Tigers, at the age of 37, and produced a man of the match display at Welford Road.

Brown had been without a club since leaving Newcastle at the end of last season, but the former Harlequins star refused to concede his career was over.

And after earning a short-term deal with Leicester last month after a trial, he was handed a start by Tigers head coach Richard Wigglesworth against Saracens and took full advantage.

Brown, who won 72 caps for England, said: "It was really good being back out doing something I enjoy.

"I texted Wiggy (Wigglesworth) and offered my services as I believed I could do a job.

"I am fully aware they have a world-class full-back here in Freddie Steward, but I'm here as cover and feel I can contribute and I think I've shown what I can do.

"I've done a lot of training down the park and in the gym in the hope an opportunity would arise.

"It sends a message to people not to write players off as one of my former clubs wrote me off because of age."

Tigers were hugely impressive in building up a 24-3 lead after only 35 minutes, with Brown, Cameron Henderson and Handre Pollard all scoring tries.

However, in a remarkable turnaround, it was all Saracens after that and the visitors could consider themselves unlucky to have lost the match - only their second defeat of the season.

Victory keeps the reigning champions in contention for a play-off spot, but Wigglesworth knows they were in a battle, adding: "For the first 35 minutes we were a really good team and if we play like that, we are a real handful.

"For the rest of the game we were pretty poor, apart from showing some real dog and fight.

"We were under the cosh for the whole 45 minutes as we just couldn't game out of our own half and our discipline wasn't good enough."