Harlequins rugby director Conor O'Shea says he had his team geared up for a tough tussle with Newcastle.
Quins boss had his side ready for Newcastle pressure
Harlequins rugby director Conor O'Shea says he had his team geared up for a tough tussle with Newcastle.
Quins top the Aviva Premiership but O'Shea insisted his team be on top of their game against a Falcons side scrapping for their top-flight survival.
"That was incredibly physical. They have a massive pack and two kicking experts in Gopperth and Manning," said O'Shea.
"We have some walking wounded in the dressing room, but they'll get over it. The win is fantastic because Nick Easter spoke to the players before the game and said they'd really have to turn up or get beaten. They turned up.
"He played fantastically well in the first half before tweaking an ankle which is why he went off.
"Jordan Turner-Hall is pretty beaten up after making the mistake of running into Taiasina Tu'ifua, and there's only ever one winner in that situation. But he's a better player now than two years ago and getting better with experience."
Clear
Quins are now nine points clear of Saracens, but O'Shea will not allow anyone at the club to get big-headed.
"There was an unfair degree of expectation around the place beforehand which was unfair because you simply do not get anything resembling an easy game in this Premiership." he added.
"I've lost badly to Newcastle in the past. One of the all-time low points in my career was losing to them here in the LV= Cup semi-final last season. It was awful. You don't forget those days.
"You don't go out believing that you'll run riot because of our position in the table or their league placing. It does not work that way and you dare not be that arrogant or you come up short."
Newcastle view
Newcastle head coach Alan Tait was furious with referee Luke Pearce and his touch judges for sin-binning two of his players, one of them - Chris Pilgrim - when it should have been Jimmy Gopperth, and generally giving his team a rough deal.
"Are you allowed to mention officials? Perhaps not too much," said Tait. "But that's two men in the sin bin this year, three when he came here last time. I guess this happens when you are where we are in the table.
"We have some guys a bit busted up in there, but they are the top side in the division and we pushed them at times only to let ourselves down with poor finishing.
"We say it every week in the dressing room but then we go out and give sloppy offloads, throwing the ball away. One minute we are attacking, the next they are away off our ball and scoring tries.
"I'll make some of them watch the video of the game during the week because we cannot keep doing this."
But Tait refuses to consider relegation and insists his squad have the quality to avoid the drop for another season.
"There's a long way to go still and a lot of rugby to be played. This squad is good enough to stay up, providing we start taking our chances." he said.
"There's a real sense of frustration with the officials and some of those decisions, but you have to get you heads up. We can compete physically but we need to finish with more sharpness."