News v Bristol, rd1

[jimKRFC]

Falcons team - sorry for the shouty formatting!

Newcastle: 15 Elliott Obatoyinbo, 14 Adam Radwan, 13 Connor Doherty, 12 Sammy Arnold, 11 Ben Stevenson, 10 Brett Connon, 9 Sam Stuart, 8 Callum Chick (c), 7 Tom Gordon, 6 Philip van der Walt, 5 Kiran McDonald, 4 John Hawkins, 3 Richard Palframan, 2 Jamie Blamire, 1 Adam Brocklebank
Replacements: 16 Ollie Fletcher, 17 Luan de Bruin, 18 Murray McCallum, 19 Freddie Lockwood, 20 Adam Scott, 21 Joe Davis, 22 Louis Brown, 23 Ben Redshaw

Bristol: 15 Max Malins, 14 Siva Naulago, 13 Benhard Janse van Rensburg, 12 James Williams, 11 Gabriel Ibitoye, 10 AJ MacGinty, 9 Harry Randall, 8 Fitz Harding (c), 7 Jake Heenan, 6 Steven Luatua, 5 Joe Batley, 4 James Dun, 3 Max Lahiff, 2 Harry Thacker, 1 Ellis Genge
Replacements: 16 Gabriel Oghre, 17 Jake Woolmore, 18 George Kloska, 19 Josh Caulfield, 20 Ben Grondona, 21 Kieran Marmion, 22 Joe Jenkins, 23 Rich Lane


Fingers crossed Bris start the way they finished last season.


Mod - c&ped in less shouty formatting cause it was making my eyes hurt

[FKAS]

Newcastle have got a bit of impact on the bench. Keep it tight early door and then go for a snatch and grab at the end of the second half.

[fivepointer]

Big game for Falcons. They need to start well and give themselves a bit of belief.

Obviously Bristol have the trump card of Lane on the bench but this might be a close one.

[Puja]

I actually quite fancy Newcastle to spring a surprise here. They looked decent in their one pre-season and they'll be very up for it. Think Bristol might regret resting the guaranteed match-winner that is RICH LANE.

Puja

[Banquo]

I actually quite fancy Newcastle to spring a surprise here. They looked decent in their one pre-season and they'll be very up for it. Think Bristol might regret resting the guaranteed match-winner that is RICH LANE.

Puja

LAUNCH FROM BENCH

[Mellsblue]

One of the little known clauses of the PGP agreement is that RICH LANE!!! is only allowed to play so many mins against the weaker teams so as to try and keep the games competitive.

[jimKRFC]

3-5 at half time and only 5200 people there - not sure how Newcs can be viable. Even 20 years ago Malcolm Pearce was saying Bristol needed crowds of 7000 to be break even.

Listened on the radio so hard to judge but it seemed that Newcs have gone a very fast pressing defence that cuased Bristol issues. The commentators seemed to have a little confusuon on the referring - especially the scrums with lots and lots of resets. Newcs baord say they were dominant - Bristol board say we were dominant, so who really knows...

Second a bit bettter with Bristol starting to find fluency and started to control the game, sounded like they deserved the BP but should have wrapped it up earlier. Newcastle only really had two try scoring chances in the whole game, with Bristol maul defence keeping out a few catch and drives.

MoM (from the radio): Max Malins, scored two, good with the ball and a try saving tackle at the death.

[Epaminondas Pules]

Great to see Joe Davis make his Prem debut. Looks a very good scrum half in the making.

[fivepointer]

Poor result for Newcastle. To only register 3 pts is a worry. The attendance should worry everyone who wants to see a viable team in the north east.

[FKAS]

Poor result for Newcastle. To only register 3 pts is a worry. The attendance should worry everyone who wants to see a viable team in the north east.

I only watched a bit of the second half and in that period Falcons butchered two chances that should have been scored. One was a fairly simple run in but a poor pass wasn't caught for what would have been a canter under the posts.

So many handling errors from Falcons, shooting themselves in the foot time and again.