Walder: We didn’t take our chances

Newcastle head coach Dave Walder had to contend with rustiness as Falcons hadn’t played a Premiership fixture for 41 days and it showed as they blew a number of first-half opportunities.

Walder, who also had to deal with losing Tom Penny and Mateo Carreras to first-half injuries, said: “I’m pretty disappointed as I don’t believe the final score was an accurate reflection.

“Losing a couple of backs early on wasn’t ideal but that’s not an excuse although we certainly didn’t expect to end up having to use scrum-half Sam Stuart on the wing.

“We put them under a lot of pressure but didn’t take our chances as we twice knocked on five metres out and then Gary Graham was held up.

“They had collision dominance in the second half and being fresher, I thought we should have been better in that area.

“Bristol were clinical and handled the conditions much better than we did.”