Nick Scott scores London Welsh's only try © Getty Images

Enlarge

London Welsh coach Gordon Ross admits his side were not at their best in their 38-7 defeat to Newcastle Falcons at Kingston Park.

Welsh's slim hopes of Premiership survival all but evaporated with the defeat, as London Irish also beat Exeter to leave them 20 points adrift at the bottom of the table. Falcons were impressive as they scored six tries as they registered their biggest Premiership win in eight years.

"It's a big disappointment," Ross said. "Perhaps the most frustrating thing is that we didn't make Newcastle work too hard for their tries. We were pretty soft at times in defence and we kept turning over possession and giving them field position and from that they scored pretty easily.

"When you're four tries down after half and hour, you know you're pretty much up against it. There were a couple of positive aspect in our attacking play but we didn't retain possession enough and made it easy for Newcastle. The conditions weren't easy but that's no sort of excuse. Any time you lose you're disappointed but we did lose our urgency and dropped off the game a bit.

"It's a massive gap between us and Newcastle and London Irish now but we just have to keep improving. We played quite well last week against Harlequins and were very competitive, but today was a backward step. It's tough times for us. The guys trained well during the week and we were expecting a good performance but we didn't step up to the plate and we were well off the pace. Newcastle scored two or three nice tries but we weren't competitive enough and didn't make them work hard enough for their scores."

Newcastle Director of Rugby was pleased with his side's performance as their upward curve continued.

"I thought we were pretty accurate today," said Richards. "We played with the wind in the first half and got four tries and leaked one - which was disappointing - although it was well-executed by them and then in second half played into a howling gale but the boys were pretty sharp actually and the accuracy of the kicking was pretty good.

"We started out probably being a bit too ambitious in the line-out but once we sorted it out and settled down it went pretty well and the lads chose the right options. We have players like Sinoti Sinoti, Juan Pablo Socino and Tom Catterick who will challenge sides with the ball in hand and then we have Chris Harris and Alex Tuilagi who can come off the bench.

"We have a back line which challenges any defence and that's why we're scoring tries. I don't have any particular number in mind in the Premiership we just go out and try to win every game and where you finish you finish. I never look at relegation. Perhaps I should have done last year - but I always look up and you have to challenge yourself."