By Leipziger
November 8 2011

The Falcons' second string suffered a second heavy home defeat of the A League season last night, conceding seven tries to Leicester at Percy Park.

In front of a decent crowd in North Shields, including several first team players, the Falcons fielded Joel Hodgson, Will Chudley, James Hall and Glen Townson in the starting line-up, while the Tigers included Steve Mafi and Ben Pienaar alongside former Falcon and now bearded Micky Young, and Fraser Balmain, once a Newcastle prospect, was on the bench.

The superbly-named Dante Mama made his intentions to send our team through the nine circles of hell clear early on with a driving run on the left but he was hauled down just in front of the line, but Mafi scored through the middle after ten minutes and George Ford converted.

Hodgson almost replied quickly but his penalty rebounded out off the post. The Falcons drove forward but Townson was penalised five metres out.

Leicester extended their lead with a penalty try awarded by the referee after the Falcons broke binding on two successive scrums, and then hooker Rob Hawkins dived over the line from close range. Ford missed the latter conversion but the Tigers were 0-19 up after half an hour.

Joe Beckitt broke through several tackles across the pitch and almost scored to the right of the posts, the referee bringing the play back for a Falcons penalty. From the lineout Chris Wearmouth knocked on agonisingly close to the line.

Cameron Mitchell managed to stop a Javiah Pohe break through the middle for Leicester with a last-gasp tackle but Lee Robinson fought his way over on the left, and a converted try by Townson on half-time was looking merely a consolation for the Falcons as the visitors already had their bonus point.

In the second half replacement Sam Shires scored from the base of a scrum with the Leicester pacl suffering from a sin-binning and Hodgson's conversion reduced the deficit to 12 points, and both teams had spells of pressure over the last half hour.

Hawkins and Pienaar put the game out of the Falcons' reach, but we did get on the scoresheet again before Alex Lewington scored the final try of the night, as Leicester ran out comfortable winners 21-47.