Rob Andrew was a pleased man in Toulouse despite watching his young Newcastle side crash out of the Heineken Cup.

Newcastle - the average age of their team was 22 - went down 33-16 to one of France's strongest club sides and can no longer reach the quarter-finals from Pool Six.

But former England fly-half Andrew said: "We can't short-circuit this kind of experience for our youngsters. I hope they will learn and gain from it."

Andrew believed Newcastle's best chance was David Walder's 60-metre penalty which if successful would have made the score just 19-16 at a crucial stage in the match.

"To come out and play as well as we did in the second half was very pleasing because it looked like we were facing a hammering.

"We knew it would be difficult but as the game wore on we improved a lot in confidence.

"Just because we are out of the European Cup does not mean that there is nothing to play for.

"We have three fantastic games left to improve and the signs are there after today that we are going in the right direction.

"Unfortunately we came up against quality players, some of the most skilful in the world, especially in the backs, and our young players tired psychologically."

Toulouse's captain Fabien Pelous used the old cliche of taking one game at a time to describe their current situation and considering Toulouse have to win every game to qualify themselves, this is an accurate description.

"We have gained confidence from today because we discovered our game and we created a good match.

"But we must be realistic. It will be much more difficult next week in Newcastle for the return. The main lesson of today was that our squad is still strong."