‘More to come’ says Deano after Friday victory
The Gallagher Premiership contest was decided with the very last play when Toby Flood scored in the right corner from Michael Young’s kick-through, man-of-the-match Sean Robinson having scored the first try from a close-range pick and go.
“We were a bit disappointed with the way we ran the tap-and-go tonight – I thought we were a little bit loose at times,” said the director of rugby.
“Even when we were doing it there were other options on which we weren’t spotting, so we’ll have to look at that during the week.
“We’ve got to be more clinical than we were tonight, but at the same time the tap-and-go is there now – Exeter have really brought it back into people’s minds and teams are doing it.
“If you get a bit of success from it then happy days, and at the end of the day we’ve just beaten a good team.”
Looking at the game as a whole, the Falcons boss said: “Overall, I thought we stuck at it pretty well.
“We needed to show a little bit more accuracy at times, and there’s still a lot more to come from us.
“Sale are renowned for being probably the most physical side in the Gallagher Premiership, and in that aspect I thought our boys fronted up well.
“Faf de Klerk at nine isn’t a bad player for them but I thought Micky Young played incredibly well, and if you can match them in the physicality stakes then you never know what can happen.
“The try that they got – I probably kept some of the guys on longer than I should have done, but sometimes you don’t know whether or not to rock the boat.
“I thought the boys who came on from the bench did themselves proud, and we got the try in the end.”
Admitting he might have gone for the three at the death, Richards added: “We had a penalty advantage at the end, and had the referee come back for the penalty I’d probably have told the boys to take the draw, if I’m totally honest.
“It wasn’t to be, and the old-timer Floody just nipped in for the winning try.”
Sitting on two wins from two despite having been written off by many of the pre-season pundits, Richards said: “We’re playing three of the top five teams in last season’s league in our first three games, and we’ve won two from two so far, so yeah, we’re happy.
“The great thing is we know there’s a lot more to come, and it’s back to the drawing board during the week to find the areas for improvement.
“We’ve got a big game at Wasps next Saturday, and we’ll put this behind us pretty quickly.”
