Newcastle crashed to a 29-7 home defeat at the hands of Gloucester in the Aviva Premiership.
The Falcons have now lost their last four matches after much early season promise and they had no answer to the Cherry and Whites' first-half performance, which saw the visitors lead 19-7 at the break.
And Gloucester's impressive defence, even when they were down to 14 men with Billy Twelvetrees in the sin-bin in the second half, paved the way for an ultimately comfortable bonus-point win with Gareth Denman's 68th-minute try.
Henry Purdy set up Andy Symons' opening 17th minute try when he scythed through. He was denied the score by a brilliant Sinoti Sinoti tap tackle but Gloucester quickly recycled and Symons flew over and Twelvetrees converted for 7-0.
Gloucester took a short quick line-out throw to catch Newcastle napping and lock Jeremy Thrush barrelled his way over - and Twelvetrees again converted for 14-0 after 24 minutes.
Newcastle had their chances with successive scrums on the Gloucester line, one of them after spurning a kickable penalty.
However, the Cherry and Whites' defence was impressive and when Twelvetrees turned the ball over with a big hit Gloucester cleared downfield.
It proved costly with Purdy soon scoring a brilliant opportunist try down the right, chipping over the Falcons defence, somehow getting another boot on the ball to keep it going forward and winning the race to the touchdown for a 35th minute try and a 19-0 lead.
Right on half-time Newcastle flanker Mark Wilson was driven over for a try converted by Joel Hodgson -- but the Falcons did not deal with a high ball at the start of the second half and paid for it with Twelvetrees' penalty for a high tackle making the score 22-7.
Twelvetrees was sin-binned for a deliberate knock-on in the 50th minute but the hosts still struggled to find a way through some impressive Gloucester defence and failed to score while the big centre was off the field.
Their task became almost impossible when Denman was driven over in the corner for the bonus point try in the 68th minute and Twelvetrees converted for 29-7.
There was plenty of movement from Newcastle in the closing minutes but precious little penetration and their slide down the table continues, while Gloucester look genuine top-four contenders.