Richards reacts to Stoop loss
Speaking after the Twickenham Stoop encounter, the Newcastle Falcons boss said: “We lacked a lot of accuracy and it came back to haunt us.
“I didn’t think Quins were that much better, to be honest, and it was a poor game all round.
“Having said that, they got their act together just that little bit more than we did, and that was the difference.”
Richards added: “It was a slippy ball out there for both teams and there were a lot of mistakes, it was difficult to get any continuity together and so it came down to who was playing in the right areas.
“We weren’t able to win that battle, we didn’t play very well at all in the first half, and even though we were a little bit better after half time it wasn’t enough.
“We had a bit more possession in the second half and when we did string it together we scored, but by then it was too late at 20-0 down.”
Losing a host of players to injury on a testing night in the capital, the Falcons boss said: “I’m not going to use injuries as an excuse for the result because every team will go through spells in a season where they have a good run of health and conversely a bad run.
“We lost Johnny Williams in the warm-up, Joel Hodgson went off after five minutes, Toby Flood was in the wars and a few other guys were battling. That’s just how it is, and I’m not going to complain. You have to deal with it, however difficult that is, and Harlequins also had injuries.
“We’ll sit down and have a good luck at the game because we can’t play with that same level of inaccuracy, so it’s not simply a case of parking it and moving on – and we’re not prepared to accept that.
“The good thing with this group is that they are very honest and self-critical, we’ll get on top of it during the week and sort it out, which we need to do against Bath on Friday.”
Tickets for Friday’s 7.45pm kick-off against Bath at Kingston Park Stadium are available by [**clicking here**][1].
[1]: https://www.eticketing.co.uk/newcastle-falcons/EDP/Event/Index/1382
