Richards reacts to Irish loss
Trailing 28-14 at the midway stage of the Gallagher Premiership contest and finding a late consolation try, Richards said: “It was a really disappointing performance.
“Credit to London Irish because they’re a good side who played well on the day, but we have to look to ourselves.
“We gave them soft tries, we conceded far too easily and didn’t take our own opportunities.
“The players are understandably disappointed in the changing room because it means a lot to them and they’ve worked hard during the week to put in a big performance, and it hasn’t happened.
“We’ll address it as a group, as we always do, and the boys will be very subdued on the long bus trip home.
“We won’t make any excuses – we just weren’t good enough on the day, and credit must go to London Irish for being much more clinical in executing their game plan.”
With attention now turning to Europe, Richards’ men will open their EPCR Challenge Cup campaign with an all-English home tie against Worcester Warriors on Friday night.
Asked how he will approach the competition from a selection point of view, Richards said: “It’s a tough one, because we play Worcester and then we have a bye week going into the Boxing Day Premiership game against Sale.
“If you give certain guys time off next weekend they’re not going to have played for three weeks by the time of that Sale game, but on the same note we’ve got a six-day turnaround after a long road trip, so we’ll have to sit down as a coaching group and work out what the best approach is.”
[**Click here**][1] to buy tickets for Friday’s game.
Season ticket members are reminded that this match is already part of your 2021-22 package.
[1]: https://www.eticketing.co.uk/newcastle-falcons/EDP/Event/Index/1662
