Newcastle Falcons 2015 / 2016

First topic message reminder :

Manager: Dean Richards
Head Coach: John Wells
Forwards Coach: Micky Ward
Defence Coach: John Wells
Attack Coach: Dave Walder
Lineout Coach: Scott Macleod
Skills Coach: Mark Laycock

Current Squad (A= Academy):
Forwards
Props:
TH - Taione Vea, Jon Welsh, Scott Wilson, Paddy Ryan, Andrew Foster
LH - Ben Harris, Rob Vickers , Eric Fry, Alex Rogers, Sam Lockwood, Adam Brocklebank (A)

Hookers: Scott Lawson, Ben Sowrey, Kyle Cooper
David Nelson (A), Santiago Socino (A)

Second Rows: Callum Green, Mauritz Botha, Will Witty, Sean Robinson , Evan Olmstead, Nick Civetta, Glen Youngs, Andrew Davidson
Harry Snowdon (A), Josh Williams (A), Max Davies (A),

Back Row: Ally Hogg, Will Welch, Nili Latu, Mark Wilson, Dan Temm, Joshua Chisanga, Harrison Orr, Opeti Fonua, Tyrone Holmes
Joe Craggs (A), Calum Chick (A), Sebastian Ferreira (A), Simon Uzokwe (A)

Backs
SH's: Sonatane Tukulua, Micky Young, Sam Egerton
Dan Taylor (A),  Ruaridh Dawson (A)

Fh's: Tom Catterick, Mike Delaney, Joel Hodgson  
Craig Willis (A), Brett Connon (A)

Centres: Juan Pablo Socino, Adam Powell, Chris Harris,
Adam Redman centre (A), Tom Penny (A)

Wing: Sinoti Sinoti, Marcus Watson, Zac Kibirige, Veriniki Goneva,
Dan Marshall (A)

FB's: Alex Tait, Simon Hammersley
Ed Coulson (A)

Signings for Next Season:
Niki Goneva - Wing (Leicester)
Sam Lockwood - LH Prop (Jersey)
Sam Egerton - SH (7's / Quins)
Harrison Orr - Back Row (Ealing)
Joel Hodgson - 9, 10, 15 (Leeds)
Ben Sowrey - Hooker (Worcester)
Evan Olmstead - Lock (London Scottish)
Opeti Fonua - Back Rower
Nick Civetta - Lock forward
Andrew Davidson (Academy) - Lock Forward
Kyle Cooper - Hooker
Tyrone Holmes - 6/7 - Glasgow

Pretty poor stuff yesterday.

Whats your thoughts?

I see the fans forum went on again this week.

Tipuna, Scotty Wilson, Delayney and Tuilagi all on long term injuries.

Also Dean has said that the kicking game is correct at times but the kicking and kick chase has been rubbish and that needs to improve.

Everyone in the stands can see that Dean!!

But why have we changed our style so drastically from last season. Surely a nice intelligent blend of both kicking and running is the answer??

Well it was nice to finally get a win. Strong second half performance.

Just need to try and carry that on into the prem.

Tigers away next so not an easy return from Euro action. Realistically, all we can hope for is a LBP, but I suspect we'll get a 20pt stuffing.

Good to hear of Socino finally having a good game and I like Tukula at 9, he's a real busy scrum half.

15 Simon Hammersley, 14 Alex Tait, 13 Belisario Agulla, 12 Chris Harris, 11 Marcus Watson, 10 Craig Willis, 9 Michael Young,

1 Rob Vickers, 2 George McGuigan, 3 Jon Welsh, 4 Mark Wilson, 5 Sean Robinson, 6 Ally Hogg, 7 Will Welch (C), 8 Nili Latu

16 Scott Lawson, 17 Alex Rogers, 18 Taione Vea, 19 Mouritz Botha, 20 Todd Clever, 21 Sonatane Takulua, 22 Tom Catterick, 23 Juan Pablo Socino

What a bizarre looking team.

The theme continues of never fielding the same side.....we wonder why they look so bad each week.

Wilson at lock? No Socino? Tait on wing?

Well are we down yet?

Getting sick of the "plucky loser tag"

The excuses keep rolling of their tongues. Excuses don't bring any points though...

Your scrum looked good.

Bits look good in different matches LT but we keep losing and hearing...of if this had worked or if we hadn't done this...blah blah.

It gets to the stage where we simply have to win! We need points and I'm concerned after Irishs win that we're in trouble already.

You're right GF, we need to start getting results asap.

Some encouraging signs from yesterday. We made an aspiring top 4 side look ordinary in parts of the game and got on top in the set piece. On another day we'd have received numerous calls at the breakdown but it was poorly reffed tbh.

Going 10pts up seemed to knock us and we just lost our tempo allowing Leicester back into the game.

If we can replicate parts of that performance we should beat Irish, if we don't, we're down.

Talk of us bringing a few signings in post new year.

See we've signed Andy Goode

GeordieFalcon wrote:Bits look good in different matches LT but we keep losing and hearing...of if this had worked or if we hadn't done this...blah blah.

It gets to the stage where we simply have to win! We need points and I'm concerned after Irishs win that we're in trouble already.

With Newcastle being my "second" team, I would love to offer some crumbs of comfort, but other than the scrum at the weekend not sure where to find it.

Driver wrote:See we've signed Andy Goode

I imagine he's going to be in fine shape after 5 months on the sidelines(pub).

With a fit Goode at 10, I think we could have turned Leicester over the weekend. A cool head at fly half would have worked well with our dominant set piece.

Goode starts in the A league tonight...

Newcastle Falcons A V Leicester Tigers A – 4/1/2016 – KO 7pm

1 Ben Harris
2 Rob Hawkins
3 Alex Rogers
4 Calum Green
5 Mouritz Botha
6 Richard Mayhew ( C )
7 Daniel Temm
8 Todd Clever

9 Ruaridh Dawson
10 Andy Goode
11 Zach Kibirige
12 Tom Catterick
13 Tom Penny
14 Giamba Venditti
15 Brett Connon

Replacements – Santiago Socino, Eric Fry, Andrew Foster, Will Witty, Callum Chick, Jamie Booth, Adam Redman, Dan Marshall.

Very dominant performance by an experienced pack. It was appalling conditions though.

Why is Vendetti playing A team?

He's been injured driver...suspect Dean is currently using the A team to get everyone match fit.

I suspect he's not the only one whos been injured. You just never hear anything from Dean.

Did you see Will Greenwood being rather complimentary about us? Goes something like this (pre Bath).

"One thing you can be certain of in 2016 is Newcastles relegation from the AP, I can't see where their next win will come from."

Thanks for the team talk Greenwood you plonker.

Always like Greenwood, but not a great comment from him. So, who's confident about the L.Irish match then?

I do as well Cumbrian but he comes up with some rubbish now and again, talks a good game though.

Falcons seem to be losing in Russia. Don't recognize many of the Newcastle players. mind you.

24-7 FT

Dear me.... We plummet to new lows.

Oh Falcons.

Think Dean needs to retire!

Look a bit deeper though and it's not an easy place to go. We had a very young side out with some out of form players also.

Ensei had an almost full International side out with bags of experience and some real physicality. Pretty sure they've not lost a home game yet, beating Brive a few weeks back.

I think the lads arrived at 4am the day before the game which is not ideal, it seems to me like it was a hiding to nothing.

But they had to travel further than us from their Siberian home.

Yes they beat Brive, but we just look poor, no matter which players we put out Sgt.

Wonders will never cease - we won.

27 - 23 Brive

Sgt_Pooly wrote:Look a bit deeper though and it's not an easy place to go. We had a very young side out with some out of form players also.

Ensei had an almost full International side out with bags of experience and some real physicality. Pretty sure they've not lost a home game yet, beating Brive a few weeks back.

I think the lads arrived at 4am the day before the game which is not ideal, it seems to me like it was a hiding to nothing.

Connacht beat them in Russia. What happened today? I saw at half-time it was 22-3!

47-5 ...

GeordieFalcon wrote:Wonders will never cease - we won.

27 - 23 Brive

Ironically keeping LI still in it ... if Grenoble stop Edinburgh getting any points and Irish get a TBP ... not that I think we can afford the distraction of a QF.

To be honest Heaf, ive said to other falcons fans I don't care a jot about Europe this season.

Past seasons have been useful for blooding the academy lads, but this game was purely about the likes of Kane Thompson getting much needed match fitness.

However I did want to see a real strong performance today...signs that in the rest of the season we can actually get some wins against teams higher up the league.

We shall wait and see....

I'm inclined to agree - I think we'd be better off not qualifying tbh ...

Well that's torn it - now we have to play Quins in the QF before we play Falcons the following week ... not sure we wouldn't have been better off with a week's rest.  Knowing our luck we'll pick up more injuries ....

Ah that'll be interesting.

Hopefully injuries to Geraghty, Lewington and Franks. Just for the Falcons game though, we wouldn't want to be nasty.

Could it be that sending out a weakened team to Russia ends up as the master strategy that keeps us up?

Wheels within wheels, conundrums wrapped in riddles and Deano is an ex-copper, nothing on the surface can be taken as what it seems.

"Yes m'lud, the defendant tried to run but couldn't on account of his broken leg - where did he get his leg broken yer Honour? well sir he fell down some stairs - repeatedly. Yes yer Honour, it was difficult finding stairs in a bungalow."

Of course we could just send out the reserves against Quins ... tricky one this ...

Heaf wrote:Of course we could just send out the reserves against Quins ... tricky one this ...

Or we could secure enough points between now and then to make the Newcastle fixture an irrelevance and go hell for leather for a piece of Silverware!

Well yes that would be my preference

So we've signed the Japanese tight head. Is that injuries, or a statement that Paddy Ryan etx just isn't good enough?

Well he's obviously not good enough......but Japanese?!?!

its all just getting a little strange SGt.

Whats going on behind the scenes. How many injuries do we have? Or is Dean just not clear on things?

Im really starting to question what hes doing!

He started for Japan whose scrum held it's own against SA and Samoa. Looks like a good signing for Newcastle.

Looks like Kane Thompson is out for a long term again after he came off v brive

And Welsh is ruled out for the rest of the season

Need to sort this post half time rubbish out and practise restarts asap.

I thought Venditti went well, is like to see him line up at 13. Tait also had a cracker. Possible line up in a few weeks time?

1. Vickers
2. Lawson
3. Vea
4. Wilson (prefer in the backrow)
5. Robinson (great season)
6. Welch (really picked up his game)
7. Latu (immense)
8. Hogg (really slowed down this season)

9. Young
10. Goode
11. Sinoti
12. Socino
13. Venditti
14. Watson
15. Tait

What's happened to Furno and Tuilagi???
6.

Where's Callum green these days?

Not been selected Driver.

So close to the 4pts with Goode having an off day with the boot. I quite fancy us to turn Tigers over next week, they're certainly beatable and we seemed to have turned the corner.

Is Welsh out for the season Sgt?

Sean Robinson is showing the form that he showed in the European games now. He's class.

Gutted to lose that one at the death. But nice to see us pushing these teams