It was a tale of three fly-halves in Saracens' 18-14 win over London Irish - one whose club bow did not go as planned, another whose evergreen skills show no sign of fading and a third who has been tipped to become England's future No10.

Debutant Ryan Lamb's failure to land four of his six attempts at goal ultimately cost Irish the chance of victory at Twickenham on Saturday, with opposite number Glen Jackson, the veteran New Zealander, stealing the headlines with a 13-point haul in a superb first-half display.

Meanwhile, Alex Goode, a 21-year-old fly-half playing in Saracens' back three, produced a mature performance at full-back that whould have delighted director of rugby Brendan Venter.

Lamb, signed by the Exiles after being discarded by Gloucester, had a tough day at the office but head coach Toby Booth will keep faith with the

23-year-old, who should blossom under the tutelage of attack coach Mike Catt.

"It's a work in progress," Booth said. "Everyone says, 'If he'd kicked the goals' - and the facts are the facts. He's disappointed by his kicking percentage.

"But he's a world-class distributor. He's starting to see the opportunities we want him to see and we're confident he can fill Catty's boots."

Jackson, 33, scored an opportunist try and then set up flanker Andy Saull with an inspired cross-field kick for a key score at the end of the first half, putting Sarries 18-3 up.

He started ahead of summer signing Derick Hougaard and Venter can see the Kiwi going on and on.

"In pre-season, Glen's just been really good and when I had to make a decision, I said to Derick that Glen is the guy in the saddle, producing the goods in all the warm-up matches. How could I justify to him that you were going to play ahead of him?" Venter said.

Goode may be the player to eventually displace Jackson as Saracens' fly-half.

The England Saxon was solid in defence while his devastating break caused panic in Irish's defence that led to Saull's try.