Dean Richards has slammed his Newcastle Falcons team for not taking their chances during their thrashing at the hands of Saracens on Sunday.

Falcons conceded five tries as they were hammered 40-3 by the league leaders at Allianz Park.

"The second half will take a little bit of looking at. For 40 minutes they had one chance and scored and I thought we were in with a shout," Richards told reporters. "We'd had a few more chances than them but you have to take your chances.

"If we had been more clinical we might have been points up rather than conceding a soft try but it's games like today that you learn from.

"Some of our boys fronted up very well but you have to keep your patience for 80 minutes and we lost that."

Newcastle face London Irish in the LV Cup on Sunday.