Newcastle vs London Welsh: 'Soft' Welsh make it easy for Falcons

Newcastle 38 London Welsh 7: It is difficult to see how London Welsh will now make up the 20-point gap between themselves and Newcastle and London Irish in the table.

London Welsh assistant coach Gordon Ross admitted his side underperformed again in the Premiership defeat at Newcastle yesterday.

Any hopes London Welsh may have had of kick-starting a survival battle were swiftly banished as the Falcons scored six tries – and had the try-scoring bonus point wrapped up by half-time – as they registered their biggest Premiership win for 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 an hour, you know you’re pretty much up against it.”

It is difficult to see how London Welsh will now make up the 20-point gap between themselves and Newcastle and London Irish in the table. “I thought we were pretty accurate today,” the Newcastle director of rugby, Dean Richards, said. “We played with the wind in the first half and got four tries and leaked one – which was disappointing – although it was well executed and then in the second half played into a howling gale but the boys were pretty sharp.”