Mixed day

By Leipziger
November 14 2010

The Falcons remain top of pool one in the LV= Cup following today's defeat to Harlequins, on points difference from Wasps, having managed to lose by only eight points despite conceding a penalty try and spending 30 minutes playing with 14 men.

After Micky Young's yellow card in the first minute, Redford Pennycook and captain Tim Swinson both spent time in the sin bin too and combined with some bizarre refereeing of the scrum by David Rose and the Falcons' backs often wasting possession with pointless kicks, a 28-20 defeat does not look too bad from a match played in the rain of south-west London.

It certainly looked like it could be a long afternoon when Quins went on the attack from the off, and Young was sin-binned before the clock hit 60 seconds. The home side kept the pressure on the Falcons' scrum through a succession of penalties and Sam Smith crossed for the opening try, converted by Rory Clegg.

It took until after Young was back on the field for the Falcons to get a foothold in the Quins half through a run from Gcobani Bobo. After winning a penalty we played to the corner, and following a drive for the line from Glen Townson, Pennycook forced his way over by the posts, giving Jeremy Manning an easy conversion.

Unfortunately, in defending the try former Falcon Clegg was injured and had to be stretchered off and replaced with Ben Urdapiletta (an early contender for the Best Name category in the Leipy Rugby Awards 2011).

With Quins going back on the attack again, Newcastle conceded a succession of penalties before the referee lost patience and showed Pennycook the yellow card, Urdapiletta knocking over the penalty.

With 25 minutes gone, having had two players sent off and suffered an awful start, 10-7 down was not a terrible position.

The home side took advantage of the extra man with Chris York scoring soon after, although the conversion went wide. Manning knocked over two penalties before the break though, the second with the last kick of the first half, to reduce the deficit to two points.

So after a roller-coaster first half, there was much for the 25-30 away fans in the Stoop's North Stand to be optimistic about – two points down despite playing half of the first 40 a man down. There was however the nagging doubt that we tend not to be a second half team...

Indeed, Urdapiletta kicked an early penalty before referee Rose went from penalising the Falcons at most breakdowns to hammering our scrum. After one scrum on our line was penalised for a Falcon standing up, the second was reset and then the third resulted in a penalty try.

I'm not saying our scrum was perfect today, but I would not be exaggerating by saying it was 100 times better than at Northampton. Later in the game, Rose gave Quins penalties at two scrums when it was clear that it was a home player standing up, indeed at the second the whistle only blew when the Harlequin gesticulated towards the referee.

Charlie Amesbury kept the Falcons in the game with a try from the left under the posts, and Manning's conversion got the score back to 25-20.

However, when the referee awarded the Falcons a play for a lineout infringement by Harlequins on our 22, the touch judge informed him that Swinson had given been even naughtier and the away captain was sent for a rest. Urdapiletta kicked the penalty in front of the gutted away fans.

Newcastle refused to lie down however, attacking into the last few minutes, but we were unable to find a way through the home defence, nor win a penalty that would have provided a bonus point. There is a lesson in there for us. With a couple of minutes to go Harlequins bundled an away player into touch, and played out the last few seconds before kicking out to secure their 28-20 win that keeps them in a good position for a semi-final spot in the LV= Cup.

In the final analysis, the Falcons showed a lot of heart today, and stayed in the game for a long time despite poor discipline, which really does need sorting, but I remain more optimistic than I have in recent autumns.  In the past four or five seasons I reckon we would have been royally trounced today.

We are still in a decent position in this competition, but that is for January, and we now move on to a game infinitely more important than the last two – Gloucester at home in the Premiership a week today. I for one can't wait!