Deano admits to mixed feelings after season-ending win
In doing so they recorded their tenth league victory of the season, the club’s highest number of Premiership wins in 15 years, although it was not enough not enough to earn a Champions Cup play-off due to results elsewhere.
Admitting it had been a bittersweet afternoon, Richards said: “We did everything we could today and came away with the points we came for, but other results just didn’t fall into place.
“We felt the five points were there for the taking, the boys played well to rack them up and even though we had the disappointment of conceding a couple of late tries it was still a decent effort.
“Bristol have some quality players and we always knew it would be a tough game, and it was a bit of an odd mood in the changing room.
“We had the satisfaction of winning our own game, followed by the news that Northampton had beaten Harlequins, which meant we had missed out on the Champions Cup play-off place.
“But we have shown good improvement this season, the team is moving forward and the players have adapted to the changes we have made to our game plan.”
The Falcons’ boss added: “We missed some opportunities in the first six weeks of the season, probably because we weren’t quite sure of what we were doing. But we kicked on from there, scored a lot more tries, and when we did we started to win more games.
“The planning is already well underway for next season, we have always had one eye on that and with the squad we are assembling it promises to be an exciting one.”
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