The Newcastle Double Header Part 2

By Leipziger
December 13 2008

Double-headers in Europe are a common sight in December as groups begin to take shape and teams begin to drop out of contention or kick on towards the knock-out stages. Tomorrow we take on Overmach Parma, looking to build on last week's win in Italy ahead of four key Premiership games and the visit of Brive in January.

So, getting back to previous head-to-heads involving the Falcons:

Since then it’s been all about the Challenge Cup, or not so challenging in many cases, such as our 2005 meetings with L’Aquila. No, not L’al Qila, my favourite curry house in Manchester, but a town named ‘The Eagle’ (I think) and being notable, at least to me, as being in the same state as Castel Di Sangro, the village and its football club which is the subject of the greatest football book ever written.

Me and my man Billy up in Newcastle looked at going to the away game, with the intention of going to watch Castel Di Sangro on the Sunday, but the fact that I’d just started a job to pay off my student overdraft and he was doing a diploma meant it didn’t happen. He did eventually make it to the home game against Padova a year later, but hasn’t been back to a rugby game since.

Anyway, I’m losing the plot [of the article] here. The Grumpy One went and told me L’Aquila was the coldest place he’d ever been, and indeed I can remember Kev and Smithy saying how cold it was in the commentary room while listening to it on the radio. Mike McCarthy and Cory Harris wouldn’t have been too cold though, playing on the wings as they were since we went into the game with one fit wide man, James Hoyle, who promptly got injured after about ten minutes.

As since then it’s been all about the Challenge Cup, or not so challenging in many

Thus we only won 0-86 instead of getting the century, IMO anyway.

We conceded in the home leg, winning only 90-14. Rubbish. But not quite as rubbish as the home semi-final which these results helped us too.

Straying off the strict topic again, that semi-final against Irish might have been the most disappointing Falcons match I’ve been to. Even more than the semi-final last season (maybe since I only saw an hour of that one), or the Heineken quarter in Paris. But that was just because of the referee whose name I now consider to be a swear word.

2006 and it was Montauban, a Heineken side this season but then a mid-table French side drawn in a group with us and their compatriots (and our inextricably linked brothers-in-rugby) Brive. Montauban was a cracking night, even though we lost 16-10, and had Micky Ward sin-binned if I remember right.

Me and Baz standing at the back singing our heads off in the cold night, Falcons packing into a diagonal lift singing “There were ten in the bed”, and then Sam and I getting extreme hunger in Toulouse on the Saturday night. Again, makes the 35-0 home win a week later seem boring by comparison.

Last season’s head-to-head will however not be forgotten, as if Prague is the trip Manchester United fans waited years for, this was the one Falcons fans wanted in the Challenge Cup above all others – Connacht. Boats, planes and automobiles were used to get those lucky enough to be there over to Galway, and they did the club and themselves proud with singing that could be heard back in the UK. I turned the radio on ten minutes into the game and I could still hear it.

Shame the performance was rubbish, and we lost, although for the locals the game was just a warm-up for the greyhound racing later in the evening. For the travellers, it was a warm-up for Guinness drinking, and for two fans getting their clothes off in front of a big Christmas tree.

The home game was also a long-awaited event, and becomes more poignant in the wake of the rumours we are hearing this week but the club has so far denied. Newcastle v Connacht on December 16^th 2007 was the home debut of the world’s top tighthead prop and Marius Hurter’s true replacement for the Falcons, the man who is big, is scary and whose face is very hairy, Carl Hayman. I didn’t realise just how big until I spoke to him after the game.

At that point we had never lost a home pool match in the Challenge Cup, and Zarg helped keep that record intact. Tries from Tim Visser, Mathew Tait, Toby Flood, Ollie Phillips and Jonny Wilkinson secured a 39-0 win on National Geordie Beard Day (are they doing that again this year?).

Victory this Sunday would be our 24^th in 24 home pool games in this tournament, with four quarter-final wins to add to that. Parma have shown they are a decent team in beating Brive and giving us a tough game last week, but anything less than a bonus point win will be a disappointment in reality.

Come on lads!

The Newcastle Double Header Part 2

Posted by: FalconsRugby.org.uk (IP Logged)

Date: 13/12/2008 08:18

The Newcastle Double Header Part 2