The Bristol Shoguns U21s chose to play with a strong breeze blowing at their backs in the first half and made a storming start early on.

The ball was moved wide left to Will Kershaw-Naylor who was simply too quick for the first line of defence and sprinted deep into the 22 before being hauled down. The ball was recycled and moved right where Richard Martin-Redman had the luxury of ignoring Mike Griffiths on his right and going over himself.

Bristol had the elements in their favour but Newcastle played havoc with the Bristol lineout and they were also able to make good ground around the ruck and maul where they had the edge on the Bristol front 5.

There were some dubious goings on at the ruck area and Chris Rowlands grew frustrated at the referee's lack of action and took the law into his own hands. A yellow card resulted and Bristol were on the back foot.

To their credit, the Bristol defence was superb and they limited Newcastle to a penalty in the time that their hooker was sinbinned despite heavy pressure on their own line.

Danny Gray started to pin Newcastle back with a series of superb touchfinders and the Bristol pressure paid off when Kershaw-Naylor was again freed on the left. He had a lot to do but he showed great strength to run over the top of one defender and then force his way over despite another desperate tackle. Gray missed a difficult conversion which made it 10-3.

However, all the good work was undone from the restart. The kickoff was gathered and taken into the maul but Newcastle turned it over and applied the pressure which resulted in one of their flankers breaking a couple of weak tackles to go under the posts. 10 all at half time.

With the wind at their backs, Newcastle changed tactics at half time and opted to kick the ball deep and challenge Bristol to run it back. It paid off when Danny Gray knocked on in the tackle on his own 10 metre line. Newcastle took the ball into the Bristol 22 and their number 5 burst from a ruck and used every inch of his frame to stretch over the line. 10-15.

Bristol tried valiantly despite the wind disadvantage and the heavy rain. They came close on several occasions but the Falcons defence was resolute. A killer blow came 10 minutes from time when Newcastle dropped a goal to make it an eight point gap.

Credit to the Shoguns, they bounced straight back and Matt Bourne almost went in at the left hand corner with Richard Martin-Redman desperately trying to drag his team mate over. He wasn't to be denied, however, and powered over soon afterwards despite ignoring the overlap outside him. Gray converted again.

Bristol tried to keep the ball alive in the final moments but time ran out.

A good effort but too much lineout ball was lost and Newcastle packed more punch up front. Bristol looked more dangerous out wide but didn't have enough of a platform from which to launch their backs.

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