Saracens coach Mark McCall has vowed his players will “attack the game” when they face fellow English heavyweights Wasps today for a place in this season’s European Champions Cup final.

And Saracens’ considerable recent experience of knockout rugby – they are reigning Aviva Premiership champions and into a fourth successive European semi-final – could be crucial at the Madejski Stadium.

“Somebody said to me that we’ve had 19 knockout games in the last six years. This is the 20th,” McCall said. “That is a pretty good record, and we have obviously had a lot of those knockout games in this competition . . . Hopefully that experience is valuable, but if it gets us over the line, we will wait and see.

Wasps have not reached this stage of the competition since 2007, when they went on to be crowned champions, but rugby director Dai Young has overseen some scintillating performances this season, including winning a Champions Cup pool that featured Toulon, Leinster and Bath.

Young’s men also smashed Saracens in the Premiership this term, winning 64-23 at Allianz Park.

McCall makes one change following a quarter-final win against Northampton two weeks ago, handing Michael Rhodes a backrow start instead of Jackson Wray.

And Wasps, captained by 2007 European Cup winner James Haskell, show two changes from the side that accounted for quarter-final opponents Exeter earlier this month, with prop Lorenzo Cittadini replacing an injured Jake Cooper-Woolley and lock Bradley Davies in for Kearnan Myall, who has a knee problem.

Young said: “The players know how big this game is, so there hasn’t been much that has needed to be said this week. We certainly don’t need any extra motivation.