New faces, old friends
By Leipziger
August 28 2009
Our Falcons ended the pre-season with an indifferent performance against a spirited Edinburgh team preparing for their own league campaign, but won with two tries and, unbelievably, a penalty. It weren't the prettiest of games, but for a friendly it'll do I guess.
While there were some decent shows around the pitch, with Micky Young looking feisty and Micky Ward grafting hard, the three new boys in the starting lineup, Gcobani Bobo, Tom Biggs and James Hudson, didn't have the most memorable home debuts. First half replacement Rob Vickerman continued his promising early form by scoring our opening try though.
Carl Hayman was a late withdrawal from our first home match of 2009/10, and with Jimmy Gopperth carrying a slight injury, Rob Miller wore the number 10 shirt last seen at KP on the back of the now legendary Tom May. Bobo, Biggs and Hudson were the only three new signings in the starting XV, with Chris Mickelwood and Laurence Ovens on the bench alongside Vickerman and young props Kieran Brookes and Grant Shiells.
Edinburgh, for their part, started with Steve Jones, Tim Visser and Craig Hamilton, all popular figures at KP at one time or another, and they started much the brighter team.
Although Bobo was called into action early to make a tackle on the left, on the other side a poor attempt at stopping an attacker would have conceded a try if a tackle hadn't come in from behind at the same time, and our first lineout was stolen from Hudson, who for me seemed to be chasing the play a lot of the time rather than actually being involved. Or maybe that was just the two minutes I spent watching him playercam-style in the first half.
Edinburgh forced their way through on their right for the opening try, as Ben Cairns was hauled down less than a metre from the line but managed to stretch out and place the ball on the tryline, and although the conversion went wide it wasn't a great start from our point of view. Worse, Tane Tu'ipulotu, who had been encouraging early on, was forced off with an arm injury.
With Biggs seeing little of the ball and Bobo knocking on a simple pass in midfield, the Falcons attack struggled to get going, but we went ahead when Vickerman took a pass 20 metres out, handed off a defender and ran through a gaping hole in the Edinburgh defence to score under the posts, Miller adding the easy conversion.
Danny Williams had also seen little action and was replaced before half time with Tom Catterick, who spent some time on the wing surprisingly but would surely have scored but for a pass being just in front of him in the corner, and Edinburgh missed a relatively simple, if distant, penalty, leaving us 7-5 up at the break.
The second half saw us have a little more territory, although by then conversation had started to take up a little more of the attention of those in the South Stand who had not seen friends for a few months, and a lot of the action was in the northern half of the pitch.
Man of the match Miller kicked a penalty to increase the lead, probably the first penalty we've kicked in a friendly in a few years, before picking a good line to score the second try himself from close range.
There isn't a great deal more I can say about the second half I don't think, although I should mention Steve Jones' smile to the crowd after he sliced a kick into touch on the 22, and substitutions and the fact the game was a friendly meant the play wasn't very fluent, at least from a Falcon's point of view. A fussy referee did not help, but then again we should not be being penalised for holding on in the second half.
Chris Mickelwood looked lively when he came on, the scrum did not worsen when the front row was replaced, and although he had little opportunity in attack Bobo's tackling looked solid for most of the night, so there are certainly encouraging signs from our 17-5 victory.
Despite Edinburgh's long periods of possession and our probable high penalty count, we did only concede one try, and they are a decent if not world-beating team, so that's a positive.
However a lot of work seems to be needed still to cut out mistakes and ensure a more cohesive attacking platform can be created, especially as we travel to Leeds next weekend who will probably not want any other win more than this one all season. It's a potential banana skin that we can't slip up on.
To be completely fair though, it was only a friendly and there's only so much you can take from it. We'll know more next Sunday night, when the real business starts.
But enough of the action on the pitch – to close, I'd like to welcome Ruck n Roll back into the South Stand Choir and say how glad I am, and I expect others are too, that we will hopefully have his lofty voice and presence back on the terraces this season.
Happy new season everyone!
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