I suppose you have to give Alan Tait credit for his honesty in saying he is considering his position. If he is still in charge when we play Padova on Sunday you'd have to assume that either we can't afford to sack him, or Kurdi has so far been unable to find a successor.

Saturday was only the second time I have ever thought about leaving a Falcons game early, in the 15 years I've been supporting them. It wasn't very good.

Selection-wise, the Falcons were boosted by the return of Luke Fielden on the wing, with Suka Hufanga moving to outside centre, but James Hudson looks set for a few weeks out with injury.

Exeter scored early when Haydn Thomas broke through the midfield gaps and his momentum carried him under the posts. Ignacio Mieres easily converted.

There is little to say about a poor first half except that whatever was done to our lineout between the Sale and Northampton games has not yet been undone. Jimmy Gopperth's off-day from the tee didn't help.

With seconds to go to the break, Mieres kicked a penalty and what happened next summed up for me the problems we have.

The kick-off was sent straight to Exeter, and under no pressure they simply kicked out to take half-time.

No thought, no intelligence.

Gopperth traded penalties with Mieres in the second half and though the Falcons put some territory together, we wasted possession through poor kiking, passing and lineouts. How can a team have three lineouts in the opposition 22 within two minutes and lose them all?

Gopperth missed a long-range penalty and Exeter were allowed to touch down under the posts. Obviously nobody thought to get Fielden, Hufanga and Manning to sprint after the ball in case anything came of it.

Mieres rubbed it in for us with a drop-goal. Finally with a couple of minutes to go Tim Swinson scored a try for the Falcons, but it wasn't celebrated as madly as some other similarly-timed ones in the past.

Gopperth's conversion got us into bonus point range, but I don't think anyone thought we could score a second try and win the game. We didn't.

Worcester's win puts us 13 points behind them, a possibly-insurmountable margin. The gap to Wasps is nine points, and there is the possibility of a final day humdinger at Adams Park in May if we get our act together and they continue losing.

Something big needs to happen though to ensure we aren't too far adrift way before then.

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