Gallagher Premiership champions Northampton Saints made it a painful end to 2024 for Newcastle Falcons, cutting loose in front of a capacity home crowd.

Leading 40-0 at the break and pushing on from there, the Saints had their four-try bonus point inside quarter of an hour on a chastening afternoon in the East Midlands.

The home side led on five minutes when lock Alex Coles supported a line-break from George Hendy, accepting an inside pass to score between the posts.

Fin Smith added the simple conversion, and he did so again three minutes later after former Falcon Trevor Davison scored their second try, hitting a hard crash-ball line from close range.

The pain got worse for the Falcons on nine minutes when a quickly-taken tap penalty saw Davison crashing over for his second try, and the Saints had the four-try bonus point when England scrum-half Alex Mitchell scored from another quick tap.

Australian flanker Josh Kemeny raced into the right corner for try number five, but despite being so far behind on the scoreboard Newcastle were still giving it a go.

Their cause looked to be helped on the half-hour when home fly-half Smith was sin-binned for illegally thwarting a slick play at the back of a line-out 20 metres out which threatened to put former Worcester team-mate Alex Hearle through a hole.

The Falcons kicked the penalty to the corner and worked a short-side play for Connor Doherty down the short-side, but the centre was bundled into touch just inches from the try-line.

Northampton duly went up the other end of the field and demonstrated their clinical finishing once more, England wing Tommy Freeman scoring between the post after a sequence of pick-and-go in the right corner ended with the ball being spun infield.

That left them 40 points up at the interval, and they added two more tries to that tally quickly after the resumption when Tom Pearson ploughed over twice down the left-hand side.

Newcastle turned to their bench in the search for fresh impetus and never gave up the fight, Jack Metcalf, Hugh O’Sullivan and Philip van der Walt among the players giving them late momentum.

But with the result long gone it was simply a case of playing for pride, Rory Hutchinson twisting the knife with a converted try in the very last minute.

Newcastle Falcons: 15 Louis Brown, 14 Adam Radwan (Jack Metcalf, 66), 13 Alex Hearle (Oli Spencer, 61), 12 Connor Doherty, 11 Ben Stevenson, 10 Brett Connon, 9 Sam Stuart (Hugh O’Sullivan, 51); 1 Murray McCallum (Micky Rewcastle, 57), 2 Ollie Fletcher (Bryan Byrne, 62), 3 Richard Palframan (Callum Hancock, 62), 4 Sebastian de Chaves, 5 Kiran McDonald (John Hawkins, 53), 6 Freddie Lockwood, 7 Tom Gordon, 8 Callum Chick (captain, Philip van der Walt, 53).

Northampton Saints: 15 George Hendy, 14 Tommy Freeman, 13 Tom Litchfield, 12 Fraser Dingwall (captain), 10 Fin Smith (Rory Hutchinson, 53), 9 Alex Mitchell (Archie McParland, 40); 1 Tom West (Tarek Haffar, 62), 2 Henry Walker (Curtis Langdon,62), 3 Trevor Davison (Luke Green, 40), 4 Chunya Munga, 5 Alex Coles, 6 Josh Kemeny (Angus Scott-Young, 56), 7 Tom Pearson, 8 Henry Pollock (Iakopo Mapu, 40).

Scorers – Tries: Alex Coles, Trevor Davison 2, Alex Mitchell, Josh Kemeny, Tommy Freeman, Tom Pearson 2, Rory Hutchinson. Conversions: Fin Smith 6, Rory Hutchinson.

Referee: Luke Pearce. Attendance: 15,249.