Falcons pay with penalties
By Leipziger
September 20 2009
Leicester yesterday ruined Geoff Parling's reunion with his old Newcastle team-mates by winning a tryless match 15-6 at Welford Road, from where I expect pretty much everyone went home disappointed.
The announcement of Rob Miller playing caused concern and initially surprise until someone reminded me of Jimmy Gopperth being injured on Sunday. The untried half-back pair of Chris Pilgrim and Tom Catterick on the bench was definitely a worry, however Tane Tu'ipulotu made a welcome return, shifting Gcobani Bobo to the wing.
Leicester started on the attack and Jeremy Staunton scored the first points in front of the new Caterpillar Stand (capacity 10,000, yes almost as much as our whole ground!) with a penalty.
We then mounted a decent attack and looked good to potentially score on the right, but in the end we had to be content with Miller kicking a penalty to level the scores.
While the Falcons continued to show solidity in the set-piece, we struggled to get out of our half and Leicester always looked more likely to score, but a number of turnovers and errors kept them out.
Two more penalties and then the fourth on half-time took us just out of bonus-point range, but it was certainly encouraging that after threatening little in the first 40 we hadn't conceded a try.
At half-time Carl Hayman and Rob Vickers were replaced with Micky Ward and Matt Thompson, the latter presumably aimed at compensating for the loss of Hayman's power.
The difference in the scrum was stark as our pack was regularly pushed around as they weren't before the break. Only when Wor Micky was taken off for debutant Laurence Ovens did it seem to stabilise.
Leicester were completely dominant in terms of possession for most of the second half, despite an early penalty from Miller to steer us back towards a bonus point, and eventually found a gap to score just to the right of the posts as we ran out of tacklers, until it was realised that the referee had already blown for a home scrum. Some strong defending helped us ensure another clean sheet, on the try side at least.
The Tiggers scored another penalty on the hour to move nine points ahead again, and Tom Biggs had to race back to gather a loose ball and save a try in the 22 ahead of the charging Tom Croft. It wasn't until with around ten minutes left that the Falcons managed to put together some consistency in Leicester's 22, or so it felt.
We found ourselves with a good opportunity on the left but Rob Vickerman decided to come inside and run into two tackles with little support rather than pass to Tom Biggs who had a one-on-one on the left, and at such moments you realise you aren't getting anything out of the game.
Leicester continued to search for their elusive try through lineouts and runs, having brought on big guns such as Aaron Mauger and Julian White, but eventually the whistle went for full-time and they had to be content with just the four points. Hopefully Steve Bates won't be content with this result though.
I think we have to be disappointed with a defeat, even if we kept Leicester from scoring a try when it looked like if they'd got one then a bonus point would have been inevitable. Bobo played an excellent part in the defence, but really needs to shape up in attack and it will be interesting to see whether he starts on Friday.
The scrum was good until Hayman went off, making reports of a hamstring injury quite worrying, and Hudson seems to be continuing to improve. Filipo Levi, while strong and clearly able to break tackles, is definitely missing a bit of pace and fitness and suggests that Phil Dowson might end up being a really big miss for us this season.
Levi seems to be Balding without the speed and dynamism, and I guess the management are trying to decide which to use to tire out the opposition and then bring the other one to make yards in the last 20. With Balding getting through a lot of work when he came on, I suggest he gets the 60 minutes on Friday.
Overall, whichever way we look at yesterday, this is the only the second time (after 1999/2000) that we have not won any of our first three Premiership games. Ergo, it's our second-worst start to a Premiership season ever. Two huge home games are on the way.
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Agreed. Which isn't bad at all. I expected a tonking.
Worst start in a season for 9 years but doesn't feel bad at all. Last time we played the 3 corresponding fixtures we didn't pick up any points at all.
I thought that Newcastle could have varied their attacking options, the kick behind the defensive line didn't work however there were a couple of breaks from open play that could easily have brought you gain.
Pretty dreadful game from both sides.