Newcastle Falcons director of rugby Dean Richards has admitted that a lack of finishing was to blame for his side's defeat to Sale Sharks in the Aviva Premiership.

The Falcons suffered their sixth loss of the season on Sunday as they went down 18-13 at Kingston Park.

Newcastle had most of the possession during the match, but Richards concedes that his team's inability to turn it into points played a big part in the result.

"It's disappointing that we didn't make better use of the huge amount of possession we had in the last 20 minutes," he is quoted as saying by Premiershiprugby.com. "We played reasonably well but it was just our final execution that let us down."

Newcastle resume their European Challenge Cup campaign on Friday when they host Stade Francais.