Rob Andrew sifted through the wreckage of Newcastle's Heineken Cup collapse against French champions Stade Francais, and admitted: "We didn't do ourselves a great deal of justice."
Newcastle's Heineken Cup quarter final debut proved a demoralising experience for the Falcons who crashed 48-8 as Stade, ran in seven tries and secured a semi-final appointment with Biarritz or Munster later this month.
Newcastle, with injured stars like Jonny Wilkinson and Colin Charvis still on the sidelines, were no match for their hosts, who simply revelled in the Parc des Princes sunshine.
Full-back Olivier Sarramea led the way with a hat-trick, while livewire hooker Mathieu Blin touched down twice, and all Newcastle could manage was a Matt Burke consolation try which followed an earlier Burke penalty.
"We didn't do ourselves a great deal of justice, and there is a huge disappointment," said Newcastle rugby director Andrew.
"Perhaps the occasion got to us a little bit, and we have now got to go back to the drawing board and learn the lessons from this.
"We put our bodies on the line, and we scored a very good try, but we made a lot of mistakes such as silly knock-ons, and you cannot operate at this level by making those sort of mistakes.
"To be honest we were up against it going into the game, and to come close we had to be at the top of our performance, and we weren't anywhere near that."
With Wilkinson and Charvis both absent, Newcastle also suffered another injury blow in the front-row when prop Mickey Ward limped off nursing an ankle injury just after half-time.
With Ward's fellow prop James Isaacson already off injured, it meant that Irish referee Alain Rolland had no option but to rule uncontested scrums for the final 30 minutes.
Newcastle were pretty much down and out by that stage anyway though, as Stade marched on in relentless fashion.
"I have never known a season like it for injuries, and it certainly puts a lot of stress on the squad in terms of continuity," added Andrew.
"The top French clubs have got big squads of players, and it is becoming a numbers game."
Andrew was non-committal about Wilkinson's prospects of returning against Zurich Premiership opponents Worcester on Sunday week, adding that he would take stock of all Newcastle's injuries over the next few days.
Burke agreed with Andrew that Newcastle could have few complaints about the outcome on a day when Stade bossed the match from start to finish.
"We prepared well for this game, but probably just a bit of execution let us down," Burke said.
"But it was a great experience for the club, and hopefully we can take that away with us and don't leave this kind of occasion behind us."
Stade played smart rugby, and it was a pretty dominant performance from them, and if you want to play at this level you cannot give opposition of such quality that much ball."