Premiership: Newcastle 12-50 Saracens: Theo Dan scores twice in comfortable Sarries win

Theo Dan scored twice to help Saracens secure a bonus point in the first half at Kingston Park

England hooker Theo Dan scored two tries in his first start since the World Cup as Saracens swept Newcastle aside for their third straight win.

Although Sebastian de Chaves gave the Falcons an early lead at Kingston Park, the visitors quickly asserted control.

Dan, a try-scorer in England's third-place victory over Argentina last month, went over twice to help secure a bonus point before half-time.

Sarries go sixth in the table after chalking up a half-century of points.

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The Premiership strugglers were quick out of the blocks, building pressure deep inside Saracens territory before lock De Chaves scrambled over from close range, with Brett Connon adding the extras.

But the visitors, whose preparations were disrupted by the loss of second row Callum Hunter-Hill to a knee injury during the warm-up, found their feet after Newcastle's Elliott Obatoyinbo was sin-binned for a deliberate knock-on and Dan burst through from the maul to roll across the line for his first try.

From there it was one-way traffic, with Saracens winning a line-out and moving the ball infield for Elliot Daly to dive across before Dan and Nick Tompkins combined to set up Alex Lewington for their third in the corner.

With the Falcons conceding a string of penalties, the champions safely pocketed their bonus point just before the turnaround as Andy Christie rose highest in the line-out again and Dan forced his way over for a carbon copy of his opening score.

Alex Lozowski's penalty extended Sarries' advantage to 24 points just after the restart, but Newcastle hooker Bryan Byrne reduced that slightly, going over from the back of a maul for his first try since joining the club from Bristol.

Any faint hopes of a Falcons revival, however, were quickly snuffed out as Sarries added three further tries, the first of them by Tom Willis, who spun neatly to go over in the corner.

Although Lozowski, whose kicking was otherwise perfect, struck a post with his conversion attempt, it made little difference - and neither did a yellow card for Ollie Stonham following his high tackle on Ben Stevenson.

Sarries were still short-handed when scrum-half Gareth Simpson's deft pass set up Argentina international Juan Martin Gonzalez to waltz through Newcastle's defence for a debut try.

Manu Vunipola added the final flourish as he wriggled free and burst across the line for the visitors' seventh score of the contest.

Newcastle head coach Alex Codling:

"You could see why Saracens are champions, they're a champion team and congratulations to them on the win.

"We started the first 10 minutes well and got ahead but from then on, we were not good enough and too undisciplined.

"We made a couple of critical errors and let Saracens back in the game, but for the last 20 minutes of the first half we hardly had the ball at all.

"Ultimately we were a long way short. We've got to be more accurate and more physical."

Saracens' director of rugby Mark McCall told Premiership Rugby TV:

"I thought the performance was incredibly strong because we had a bit to deal with. We lost Callum, who hurt his knee in the warm-up five minutes before the start.

"It doesn't look great, to be honest and we really feel for him, he's been doing so well but someone else will have to step up.

"We've got a lot of young players who are ready to do that - a load of people under the age of 25, showing us what the future of the club might look like.

"Everybody just rolled their sleeves up and got stuck in and did it for 80 minutes and that's why we got the win. There's a lot of energy in the group and this was a very satisfying away win in the circumstances."

Newcastle: Obatoyinbo; Radwan, Orlando, Jennings, Stephens; Connon, O'Sullivan; Brocklebank, Blamire, Bello, Rubiolo, de Chaves, Lockwood, Cross, Chick (capt).

Replacements: Byrne, Brantingham, McCallum, Hawkins, van der Walt, Stuart, Hutchison, Stevenson.

Saracens: Daly; Maitland, Lozowski, Tompkins, Lewington; Goode (capt), van Zyl; Mawi, Dan, Clarey, Stonham, Tizard, Gonzalez, Christie, Willis.

Replacements: Hadfield, West, Judge, Knight, B Vunipola, Simpson, M Vunipola, Cinti.

Referee: Anthony Woodthorpe

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