HARLEQUINS boss John Kingston insisted his men must "get back on their horse" to avoid galloping into a winter of discontent after a summer of scandal at the Twickenham Stoop.

Quins slumped to a third consecutive Guinness Premiership defeat against Saracens and suffered further injury concerns to prospective England centre Jordan Turner-Hall and wing David Strettle.

Their early ambition was strangled by Saracens, Brendan Venter's arch-pragmatists, who continued their unbeaten start to the new campaign with a 22-9 away victory.

Kingston said: "We wanted to start the season better and it is disappointing. We have turned two games over at home (following last weekend's defeat to Leicester).

"The only way we can deal with it is to get back on the horse against Newcastle on Friday night."

Gloucester are in a similar predicament to Quins and will not relish a trip to Vicarage Road next weekend after losing 27-14 at home to Northampton just six days after conceding 40 points to London Irish.

"We weren't good enough, and we cannot hide behind it. We have all got to stick our hands up, our basics weren't good enough," said Gloucester boss Bryan Redpath.

Saints fly-half Shane Geraghty, like Turner-Hall a candidate for the England No 12 jersey, guided Northampton to victory while prop Soane Tonga'uiha and centre Jon Clarke scored the tries.

Leicester were again indebted to third-choice fly-half Jeremy Staunton for kicking five penalties in their 15-6 victory over Newcastle, but director of rugby Richard Cockerill was left concerned by another try-less performance.

The Tigers have not crossed the whitewash all season and Cockerill said: "We have got nine points from three games, so there are teams in worse positions than us.

"We have got to ride the storm and work on our accuracy. We have some new guys in the side and a few injuries at the moment as well but not scoring tries is a bugbear for all of us.

"Everyone is frustrated that we had opportunities but didn't take them. We weren't accurate enough, we turned the ball over and we couldn't finish it off.

"We battered their line and battered their line and we couldn't finish it off."