Tait makes early stand

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The Falcons assistant coach has identified "an unacceptable percentage" of missed tackles that blighted Newcastle's display in their 14-9 home defeat to Sale Sharks last weekend.

Ahead of Sunday's visit of Northampton tomorrow, Tait said: "This isn't about player development or patting people on the back, it is the Guinness Premiership and it's do or die every single week. We had 13 out of 98 missed tackles, and that is an unacceptable percentage."

He added: "If you look at the names in the Sale back-line, there was potentially a lot of threat there which we contained fairly well, but we slipped off one man on one occasion and he scored their only try.

"The disappointment for me is that we had talked about the (Charlie) Hodgson show-and-go all week in training, we had worked hard to prevent it, but it just shows you that in the heat of battle you have to be cool-headed.

"As a professional the only way to fix it is to go out, work hard in training and win the next game. We need to put a massive emphasis on getting that number down.

"The players have been made aware of it, and then we had something I have never experienced in all my years - a prop topping the tackle count.

"All credit to Carl Hayman, his work-rate is outstanding and his performance levels are excellent, but a few of our forwards need to seriously look themselves in the mirror and ask why a tighthead prop is our leading tackler.

"I would expect certain positions to be topping the tighthead prop on tackle count, but they have all been told."