Reihana's side suffered their ninth league defeat of the season

Northampton captain Bruce Reihana offered no excuses after Saints suffered their first home defeat in nearly two years.

Newcastle Falcons triumphed 19-13 at Franklin's Gardens on Saturday to move level on points with Northampton in the Guinness Premiership table.

Reihana admitted to BBC Radio Northampton: "We didn't fire straight out of the blocks and they did."

"We'll look at ourselves very hard, see what happened and fix it."

He added: "To go three tries down after just a quarter of an hour was a huge shock.

"After that we knew that if we kept our composure we'd create some gaps and we finished off with a good try.

"But we turned it over too many times and they were just too far ahead."

It was the Saints' first loss on their home turf since Gloucester won in the Premiership in March 2007, shortly before Northampton were relegated into National League One for the 2007-8 season.

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