Newcastle Red Bulls
Quins fly high, Falcons struggle on
By Leipziger
November 28 2011
The Falcons dare not lose to Gloucester on Friday night after yesterday’s six-try defeat to Harlequins left us nine points adrift of Worcester at the bottom of the Premiership.
The home side were made to work for their 13th win from 13 games this season but will be happy to have avoided a banana skin, while Alan Tait has come under more pressure from supporters after another league defeat.
Tait started with Pacific debutants Suka Hufanga and Taiasina Tu’ifua, with Adriaan ‘The’ Fondse on the bench. Hufanga made a up a physical backline alongside Jamie Helleur and James Fitzpatrick, with Alex Tait and Jeremy Manning providing the pace.
Harlequins roared into life immediately and looked to score tries by kicking penalties into the corner, but finally with the first quarter coming to an end Nick Evans kicked over the first three points of the day.
Quins scored the first try too, Seb Stegmann rounding through two slack tackles on the far left and Evans kicking the conversion.
The Falcons hit back with five minutes of the first half to go as Manning steamed for the tryline in front of the few travelling Geordie fans, and despite being tackled just in front of the line the full-back managed to reach over and ground the ball. Jimmy Gopperth missed the conversion but the deficit was halved.
For a short while. The Falcons wasted good possession by kicking into the 22 and allowing an easy mark, and breaking upfield Danny Care scored. The unconverted try gave the Londoners a 10-point lead going into half-time.
At the break the Falcons surprisingly replaced Alex Tait, who had had a decent game while Hufanga had barely had the ball, with Rikki Sheriffe, although it seems Chip may have an injury.
Gopperth missed a penalty early in the second half and then with the Quins forwards bombarding our tryline, Tim Swinson was sin-binned by the posts.
The Falcons’ 14 men defended heroically from scrum after scrum, Fitzpatrick eventually joining a pack that began to drive Quins back. Just before Swinson came back on Chris Pilgrim was given a yellow card to the dismay of all of the away fans, who had no idea what the touch judge had seen and said to the referee.
The inevitable happened and Luke Wallace was driven over the line for a converted try.
A late tackle on Gopperth yielded a penalty that the fly-half kicked over, a strange decision since we were 17 points behind and struggling to get decent possession together for an attack, but it was something to cheer at least.
Mike Brown sealed Quins’ bonus point and his side’s win if there was still any doubt about that.
Stegmann got his second score from well within his own half as the Falcons coughed up possession in attack, and with the clock on zero James Johnston got his reward for a strong performance with the final try.
This result was probably predictable considering how both teams’ seasons have gone, but this is another game down in the short Premiership season. At least this game is out of the way now, but it just makes every future one more important, beginning with a must-win on Friday.
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Stumbleupon28/11/2011 11:36
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What I can't understand is that for the first 30 minutes or so, we struggled to penetrate your well organised defence but in the second half, your organisation fell to pieces. Very reminiscent of how we've played these past few years.
Anyway, good luck for the rest of the season.
Same old, same old. We cannot play 80 minutes. I've not read the reports but did Tait make wholesale subs on 60 mins like he usually does?
Newcastle Manning (Goosen, 68); A Tait (Sheriff, h-t), Helleur, Fitzpatrick, Hufunga; Gopperth, Pilgrim (Pasqualin, 66); Wells (Shiells, 53), Mayhew, Hall, Hudson (capt), Van der Heijden, Swinson (Fondse, 66), Hogg, Tu'ifua (Welch, 61).
A big substitution was made when Pilgrim's time in the bin was up, I think Jordi and three others came on, and Quins had just scored I think their fourth try but the game was definitely over before mass substitutions.
Bit in tomorrow's Journal and Chron on the initial fears over the injury.
Will get the definitive verdict later in the week once swelling subsides and scans etc are in.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:11:28:22:17:41 by Mark Smith NCJ Media.
EDIT: I've now watched back the close up from the other side just before the hit. The tackle was made by Jimmy Gopperth. I won't bother with another freeze frame, it is at 59:16 on the Premiershiprugby.tv full match coverage
Nunquam Dormio
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:11:29:01:05:17 by Arlecchino.
Nunquam Dormio
Congrats on your 13 in a row, a fine start to the year and a club set up we could do worse than copy.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:11:29:22:31:40 by Pgg.
Must admit I missed the Marler one referred to earlier on this thread, but Fa'asavalu should have gone for an awful and premeditated cheap shot on Gopperth.
Compare and contrast with Quins v Connacht when one of their players was miles offside and hacked Chris Robshaw's feet from under him creating a huge space for them to score.
I am not saying either side was any worse than the other, I don't think the match was dirty at all, and I think you got the worse hand off the ref.
All I was originally trying to do was show the incident and who the tackler was that should (arguably) have got the card rather than Pilgrim.
Nunquam Dormio
Just wanted to say that I was at the game, and it was the strangest 39-8 I have ever seen, it felt more like you should have a losing BP, we just couldn't break you down. but sometimes when you are on a winning streak, all the breaks go your way, and the reverse is also true. Keep the faith, I don't think your team is as bad as the table says.....but then everyone else seems to be swapping points merrily so there's a big gap to bridge. From what I have seen of Glaws this year, they're not great...so good luck and go for the 4 points on Friday.
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