“Their set piece was good and strong, they did well around the breakdown and they showed a lot of ambition.

“We were pretty pleased to be in the lead at half time because we'd been on the ropes, we lost our captain after 14 minutes and we'd had a guy in the sin bin.

“We scored two reasonable tries in the last ten minutes of the half to get in front, and at that point we were the better team.

“The second half started fairly brightly but we made a silly early mistake, they scored a try from it and that was the start of the slump. After that it was one-way traffic, which is extremely disappointing.”

The Falcons were forced to play all but 14 minutes without inspirational skipper Matt Burke, with Fletcher revealing: “Matt has about three or four cuts to his head, as well as concussion, so unfortunately it wasn't possible to get him back out on to the field.

“He cracked heads twice in quick succession, so it's just one of those things and we'll put him through the cog test during the week to see where we are for next weekend. Andy Perry also went off with a bang to the face which we will have checked out, but there is a chance that could be reasonably serious so it will be another blow if that turns out to be the case.”

Highlighting his side's current precarious position on the same day that bottom side Worcester also won, he said: “The reality of the situation now is that we have been dragged back in to the relegation fight after today's results.

“One of five teams will go down, and it will be a good team, much more so than in any other year because I don't think there is a bad side in this league.

“We are under no illusions. Our next two Premiership games are both against Leicester, which is tough, but we do have a reasonable run-in with four of our last five being at home, and I believe we have the quality to come through.”