“Our attitude and application in the first half was just terrible, but even at 24-0 down I felt we still had the opportunity to get back in to it,” he said.

“That is not to take away from what was a fantastic performance from a good London Irish side, who made life very difficult for us throughout.”

Despite fielding his dream back line Fletcher's Falcons failed to find top gear until the final 40, stating: “You know you're having a bad day when Matt Burke drops the ball twice, which I've never seen in the three years he's been at the club.

“That was the story of the first half really, dropped balls, missed tackles and not a lot of flow, but credit to Irish because they really fronted up and took their chances.

“We did miss Ben Woods with the way Steffon Armitage dominated the breakdown, but we had serious words at half time and I was pleased with a lot of what we produced in the second half.

“The replacements all made a valuable contribution, but then to have two sucker punch tries against us right at the end was just rubbing salt in the wound after the amount of attack we produced during that period.”