By Ash C & Maverick Falcon
September 22 2014

Newcastle Falcons suffered their nineteenth straight defeat on Sunday at the hands of the current Premiership champions, Northampton Saints.

Northampton played a side that was full of big international names so it was clear from the offset they were a class above wanting to put right their defeat at the hands of Wasps last week.

Inside the first five minutes, Northampton were able to get their name on the score board with Will Hooley handing off two tacklers and crossing the white line. He followed with the conversion for good measure. Less than two minutes following the try, Newcastle were reduced to fourteen men with Ally Hogg being sent to the sin-bin for a tackle off the ball, Will Hooley converted the penalty to make the score 10-0.

Northampton pushed forward with a maul that happened not long after the re-start and Newcastle were again on the wrong side of Garner and Hooley calmly stepped up and slotted another three points. Fifteen minutes passed within the first half and Alex Waller crossed over for the second try of the game. Kahn Fotuali’i off-loaded the ball to Waller who easily ran in for the try. Hooley was unable to capitalise on the score of the try as his conversion attempt went wide of the posts.

On the nineteenth minute, Ma’afu was penalised for being offside and Juan Pablo Socino stepped up and slotted Falcons' first points of the game, righting the wrongs of the missed kicks last week.  Wahoo we are on the score board! Unfortunately four minutes later, from a scrum, Saints won a penalty and Hooley added another three points to his name.

Three minutes after the penalty, a quick tap penalty goes horribly wrong for the Falcons and Ken Pisi was able to jump on the misery of the Falcons to score another try which Hooley converted.

Half-time could not come soon enough and when the second half began, Falcons seemed to have come out of the blocks with all guns blazing and played a series of quick moves yet were unable to cross the whitewash. It was not until the 69^th minute of the game where Noah Cato was able to break through and score a try which sent the fans in the South Stand into uproar. There seemed to be a spark of passion in the way the team were playing, but again a mixture of handling errors and poor refereeing meant they were unable to score.

The final nail in the coffin came in the 78^th minute when George North crossed over giving Northampton their fourth try of the day and ending all hope of Falcons achieving even a losing bonus point. Saints held onto the ball and ran down the clock to make the final score 10-35. In my opinion, it could have been a lot worse against Saints, just take the scoreline at Bath on Saturday as an example – at least we managed to score some points!

For those of you who watch Russell Howard’s Good News – it is not all doom and gloom. Two young children went to the game for the first time today and despite the score, they have decided they wish to come back. As you will see from the picture, they had great fun standing at the front and cheering the Falcons on with their flags.