Falcons through after lacklustre show against Connacht

Newcastle Falcons limped into the quarter-finals of the British & Irish Cup on Saturday but the performance was far from what is needed should they return to the Premiership next season.  

Dean Richards informed fans before the game that the back row have not played together regularly this season so it should be an interesting afternoon – he was unfortunately far from the truth.

From the outset it was clear to see that there would be plenty of questionable decisions from the refereeing team. The game began with a series of kicks from both sides before James Fitzpatrick went for a run just inside Falcons' own half. Unfortunately the ball was lost in contact and this resulted in a scrum to Connacht.

From the scrum Connacht won a penalty and opted to go for posts at 60 metres out, however it went wide. From the restart Falcons kicked long and Connacht came back on the attack. Connacht decided to chip it over the head of Oliver Tomaszczyk, but Oliver decided to block the attacking player and gave away a Connacht penalty – to be honest he was lucky not to get a yellow card.

For the majority of the first-half, Falcons spent most of their time stationed on Connacht’s line – and credit to their defence, they managed to keep Newcastle from scoring until the half hour mark when Jonny Golding crashed under the posts to give Luveniyali an easy conversion to leave Newcastle in the lead 7-0.

Possession kept changing hands during the course of the last 10 minutes of the first-half, yet Newcastle remained in Connacht’s half. A scrum was awarded to Newcastle with only a few minutes of the half remaining. Oliver Tomaszczyk charged through and crossed the line – or so we thought!

The referee and the touch-judge on the left-hand side of the field seemed to think differently to those fans in the South Stand and awarded a scrum to Newcastle five metres out. How that was not a try I will never know as standing at the front of the South Stand it was clear to see that the ball was grounded – rant over! First-half finished 7-0 to Newcastle.

At this point I decided to head indoors to see how Racing Metro v Saracens were doing and if I wasn’t doing this match report I think I would have opted to stay inside in the warmth and watch that match!

Anyway the second half started and it only took four minutes for Newcastle to be penalised from the scrum and Connacht opted to go for posts leaving the score 7-3. Tom Catterick was all over the place during the course of the game and kept Falcons in Connacht’s half. Just a shame he was unable to capitalise and score a try.

Hodgson replaced Luveniyali midway during the second half and Falcons were awarded a penalty from a breakdown in the scrum. Hodgson was able to add the points leaving the score 10-3 with 20 minutess to go.

It only took an extra five minutes before tempers boiled over and it seemed like the entire two teams were involved in an off the ball scrap. I think that was the first time I had seen the West Stand on their feet all day to see if they could get a better glimpse of the action. It took a few minutes for tempers to be calmed down and the referee awarded a penalty to Connacht which they were happy to convert making the score 10-6. Nail biting times!

For the last ten minutes of the game, Falcons continued to dominate play however they were unable to capitalise the chances they had and silly little errors were creeping in. During the course of the last ten, Falcons were awarded two penalties which Hodgson calmly stepped up and converted leaving the score 16-6 at full-time.

As mentioned at the beginning of this report, this was by far the worst performance seen at Kingston Park in a number of months. I understand it was mentioned at the Season Ticket Holders Forum that Richards was trying out different combinations, but it was clear to see today that perhaps some combinations don’t work that well!

Onwards and upwards to Cross Keys next.