Richards bemoans Wasps loss
The Aviva Premiership clash saw the Falcons shipping three early tries to go 19-10 down at half-time, Wasps scoring 21 unanswered points after the break in an emphatic home victory.
Speaking afterwards, Richards said: “We didn’t play with the necessary accuracy and didn’t respect the ball as much as we should have done. Against a side as good as Wasps you’ll get punished if you do that, and they were on fire today.
“They didn’t miss their internationals at all, if we’re honest we didn’t turn up and we didn’t play as well as we should have done.”
Crediting the speed of the home team, the Falcons’ boss added: “When you have Kyle Eastmond with Christian Wade and Josh Bassett on the wings they have a lot of pace there, and in the first half they caused us problems. That was more down to our defensive structure with guys stepping out of the line and a few dog legs here and there, and we didn’t stick to our structure as much as we should have done.
“We’ll not play that badly twice though, we’ll quickly move on to look at Friday’s home game against Gloucester and learn the lessons from today.”
Having seen his team make a number of opportunities but only cross the try-line on one occasion, Richards said: “If you look at the line-breaks we probably made as many as they did, or not too far off, but we just couldn’t finish them off. That was a big part of it, and Wasps were the better team. They had a lot more composure in their game and on paper they probably looked a little stronger than us.
“That told, and if you don’t have a good day at the office by showing inaccuracy about your game then it’s not going to happen for you against a top side like them.
“It’s very difficult to take positives like that other than perhaps a guy like Gary Graham showing up pretty well on his Premiership debut. He acquitted himself well and I was pleased by that, but in terms of any other positives we’ll have a good look at the video and come back against Gloucester with a much better performance.”
