For three months during the summer, Toby Booth and Mike Catt gnawed away on the number 26. Statistics often make a fool of the analyst, but as Booth, the London Irish head coach, said in explaining why Irish had finished seventh in the Premiership last season: “We only converted 26 per cent of line-breaks and everyone who finished above us had a higher percentage than that.”

Well, they have stopped dropping balls and overrunning passes. After 44 tries and only two try bonus points last season, they moved to 34 tries at the halfway point of this season, with seven on Saturday against Newcastle, and collected their third try bonus after half an hour. Newcastle had lots of ball, but were all honest endeavour and slow phase play. They wound up in cul-de-sacs and got Irish going by gifting them the first two tries.

It was like watching England get torn apart by a rampant southern hemisphere side. “I think we're quite similar to a Super 14 side,” Peter Hewat, the Australian, said. Hewat adds something different to Delon Armitage, the England full back, who Booth said had a chance of being fit for the match away to Sale Sharks on Friday.

The only area where Irish were bested was the scrum. Alex Corbisiero, their 20-year-old loose-head prop, got one lesson from Carl Hayman, the world's best tight-head, and another from Christophe Berdos, the French referee.

Berdos was beginning the latest French exchange programme that resulted in Wayne Barnes, the English referee, taking charge of the Bourgoin versus Biarritz game on Saturday.

Scorers: London Irish: Tries: Ojo (12min), Armitage (22), Danaher (27), Hewat (30), Corbisiero (45), Catt (64), Mapusua (77). Conversions: Hewat 4, Geraghty. Penalty goals: Hewat (8). Newcastle Falcons: Try: Visser (72). Penalty goal: Clegg (16).

Scoring sequence (London Irish first): 3-0, 10-0, 10-3, 17-3, 22-3, 29-3 (half-time), 36-3, 41-3, 41-8, 48-8.

London Irish: P Hewat (rep: M Catt, 54); T Ojo, ESeveali'i (rep: C Gower, 60), S Mapusua, T Homer; S Geraghty, P Hodgson (rep: A Lalanne, 64); A Corbisiero (rep: D Murphy, 54), D Paice (rep: J Buckland, 60), T Lea'aetoa, J Hudson, R Casey (rep: K Roche, 46), D Danaher, S Armitage (rep: RThorpe, 54), C Hala'ufia.

Newcastle Falcons: T May; T Visser, J Noon, T Tu'ipulotu, J Rudd (rep: D Williams, 65); R Clegg (rep: S Jones, 60), J Grindal (rep: M Young, 45; sin-bin, 56-67); M Ward (rep: D Wilson, 41), MThompson (rep: R Vickers, 41), C Hayman (rep: M Ward, 76), G Parling, M Sorenson, P Dowson, BWilson, A Balding (rep: E Williamson, 53).

Referee: C Berdos.

Attendance: 10,978.