Last season's beaten Aviva Premiership Rugby finalists led 10-6 at the interval but unravelled when Goode was shown a yellow card for palming the ball to safety from an offside position as the Exiles attacked their line. In his absence Irish amassed 15 points through tries from Delon Armitage and Sailosi Tagicakibau and a penalty and conversion from Ryan Lamb.

Venter refused to criticise referee Andrew Small's decision but left little doubt of the impact it had on the outcome of the match.

"The sin-binning swung the game - it was the issue today," said the director of rugby. "I'll get myself into trouble if I debate the decision. We'll look at it again on Monday. Of course it was an issue. It was 10-6 at half-time then the sin-bin came and then we conceded 15 points.

"Give Irish some credit during the sib-binning, they started slow in the first half but got better. But the score was not a fair reflection of the game - that was a close match which was swung by other things."

Tries from Ernst Joubert and Schalk Brits helped Saracens make a solid start before falling apart when fly-half Goode was shown his yellow card.

"We'll be better for this. This will be the best thing that happens to us all season," said Venter. "It's a lot more fun when things are difficult. It's not enough of a challenge when you're only winning. The good thing is there are another 21 of these matches to go."

A penalty try and late touch down from Topsy Ojo completed Irish's bonus-point victory and head coach Toby Booth had little sympathy for Venter's view.

"When Paul Hodgson was sin-binned they had a chance to get back into the game," he said. "We had two chances in four minutes and took them both. If you don't take your chances you get punished, but we did. The bottom line is four tries, a bonus point win and we move on. Brendan's view is irrelevant to me. The referee was consistent.

"The contest was very positive and both teams tried to play, which bodes well for rugby as a spectacle this season. I've backed my team 100 per cent. There's been a lot of media attention on what this team can't do. Today we saw what it can do."