Post by Jamie Crawford on Aug 21, 2018 11:02:30 GMT
Newcastle Falcons preview sponsored by Steadfast Industrial Conveyor Belts (www.steadfast.uk.com)
On Saturday August 25th, the Knights will welcome Premiership opposition Newcastle Falcons to Castle Park. Griffiths' side faced the Falcons twice last season, coming out victorious at home and losing at Kingston Park.
Since then the Falcons finished fourth in the Premiership and have an array of talent that Knights will face battle with. Premiership player of the season Vereniki Goneva scored 13 tries, the joint highest in the league. Fellow attacker Toby Flood managed 80 points for the Falcons in the last campaign.
Griff is eager to earn a repeat of last pre-season's home result. "They play the night before, so they'll be using their whole squad but as we saw last time at Castle Park it was a great game with the likes of Ryan Burrows, Ruaridh Dawson, Cameron Cowell playing last time."
"Whoever plays for Sale Sharks or Newcastle here are good players so it'll be a very good test ahead of a tough Championship season."
Flockhart coming into his 10th season at Castle Park, enjoys facing the higher placed opposition. "You want to play against good teams in pre-season, test ourselves and we always like to play against Newcastle, we beat them here before and we'd like to do it again." (DRFC website)
The Falcons face probably the most difficult start to the 2019/19 season when they welcome reigning Premiership champions Saracens to Kingston Park on Sunday 2nd September. They will be keen to play as they mean to play a week later.
Sarries have won three of the past four titles and so are not likely to be any weaker than last season.
“…USA international Paul Mullen has joined Newcastle Falcons for the first four months of the Gallagher Premiership season as the club bolsters its propping stocks.
Born and raised in Ireland, the 26-year-old was part of Munster's Under-20s squad before relocating to the USA to further his studies…
…Mullen’s arrival comes on the back of the previously-announced signings of George McGuigan (Leicester Tigers), Pedro Bettencourt (Carcassonne), Logovi’i Mulipola (Leicester Tigers), Guy Graham (Hawick), Tom Arscott (Rouen), Connor Collett (North Harbour), Nemani Nagusa (Aurillac) and Johnny Williams (London Irish), as well as senior academy promotions for England Under-18s stars Cameron Nordli-Kelemeti, Morgan Passman, Will Montgomery, Tom Marshall, Josh Hodge and Rob Farrar”
( Falcons website, Tuesday 14 August 2018)
A pre-season game would provide a perfect opportunity to bed the players in to the Falcon’s style of play and the Falcons will be wary because they lost at Castle Park pre-season last year. Winning or losing isn’t the priority of pre-season games but a Premiership team won’t like losing away to a team from the division below, pre-season or not. Sale Sharks understandably beat us, which lays a marker for the Falcone to do similar, especially when they face Saracens as their season-opener.
The Falcons will have played three pre-season games already; against Championship team Nottingham at home (won 47-26), away to Pro 14 team Leinster (won 17-42) and home v Pro14 side Edinburgh, which they play they evening before (24th). They now travel down to Castle Park to face the Knights before starting their season at home against Saracens in the newly sponsored Gallagher Premiership.
The fixture against Nottingham was an 11-try action-packed game that ended Falcons 47-26 Nottingham.
The Falcons flew over to Ireland (on a plane – sorry, it made me laugh!) for their fixture against Leinster on 17 Aug KO 19.00. The result was 17-42, as visitors, the Falcons built a 21-7 half-time lead and simply refused to let the pace drop. ‘Another high-scoring game with nine tries scored; Falcons tries were scored by Tom Penny (Centre), Zach Kibirige (Wing), Simon Uzokwe (Back Row), Adam Radwan (Wing), James Elliott (Scrum Half), Johnny Williams (Centre).
As mentioned, the Falcons play Edinburgh the evening before they play us (24 Aug KO 19.45), as Griff said the whole of the Falcons squad will be used over the two games. That won’t mean that players are fatigued when they play us because I count that the Falcons have 47 first team squad plus 11 in the senior academy squad, not including our own Nick Civetta who they include in the first team squad. However the squad list doesn’t include any of the new signings which leads me to suspect it’s out of date. You get the point though, the Falcone are probably going to have over 50 players to choose from.
COYK
DONNY, DONNY, DONNY…
As Dougie said, we’ve done it before (beaten them art Castle Park) and we can do it again.
On Saturday August 25th, the Knights will welcome Premiership opposition Newcastle Falcons to Castle Park. Griffiths' side faced the Falcons twice last season, coming out victorious at home and losing at Kingston Park.
Since then the Falcons finished fourth in the Premiership and have an array of talent that Knights will face battle with. Premiership player of the season Vereniki Goneva scored 13 tries, the joint highest in the league. Fellow attacker Toby Flood managed 80 points for the Falcons in the last campaign.
Griff is eager to earn a repeat of last pre-season's home result. "They play the night before, so they'll be using their whole squad but as we saw last time at Castle Park it was a great game with the likes of Ryan Burrows, Ruaridh Dawson, Cameron Cowell playing last time."
"Whoever plays for Sale Sharks or Newcastle here are good players so it'll be a very good test ahead of a tough Championship season."
Flockhart coming into his 10th season at Castle Park, enjoys facing the higher placed opposition. "You want to play against good teams in pre-season, test ourselves and we always like to play against Newcastle, we beat them here before and we'd like to do it again." (DRFC website)
The Falcons face probably the most difficult start to the 2019/19 season when they welcome reigning Premiership champions Saracens to Kingston Park on Sunday 2nd September. They will be keen to play as they mean to play a week later.
Sarries have won three of the past four titles and so are not likely to be any weaker than last season.
“…USA international Paul Mullen has joined Newcastle Falcons for the first four months of the Gallagher Premiership season as the club bolsters its propping stocks.
Born and raised in Ireland, the 26-year-old was part of Munster's Under-20s squad before relocating to the USA to further his studies…
…Mullen’s arrival comes on the back of the previously-announced signings of George McGuigan (Leicester Tigers), Pedro Bettencourt (Carcassonne), Logovi’i Mulipola (Leicester Tigers), Guy Graham (Hawick), Tom Arscott (Rouen), Connor Collett (North Harbour), Nemani Nagusa (Aurillac) and Johnny Williams (London Irish), as well as senior academy promotions for England Under-18s stars Cameron Nordli-Kelemeti, Morgan Passman, Will Montgomery, Tom Marshall, Josh Hodge and Rob Farrar”
( Falcons website, Tuesday 14 August 2018)
A pre-season game would provide a perfect opportunity to bed the players in to the Falcon’s style of play and the Falcons will be wary because they lost at Castle Park pre-season last year. Winning or losing isn’t the priority of pre-season games but a Premiership team won’t like losing away to a team from the division below, pre-season or not. Sale Sharks understandably beat us, which lays a marker for the Falcone to do similar, especially when they face Saracens as their season-opener.
The Falcons will have played three pre-season games already; against Championship team Nottingham at home (won 47-26), away to Pro 14 team Leinster (won 17-42) and home v Pro14 side Edinburgh, which they play they evening before (24th). They now travel down to Castle Park to face the Knights before starting their season at home against Saracens in the newly sponsored Gallagher Premiership.
The fixture against Nottingham was an 11-try action-packed game that ended Falcons 47-26 Nottingham.
The Falcons flew over to Ireland (on a plane – sorry, it made me laugh!) for their fixture against Leinster on 17 Aug KO 19.00. The result was 17-42, as visitors, the Falcons built a 21-7 half-time lead and simply refused to let the pace drop. ‘Another high-scoring game with nine tries scored; Falcons tries were scored by Tom Penny (Centre), Zach Kibirige (Wing), Simon Uzokwe (Back Row), Adam Radwan (Wing), James Elliott (Scrum Half), Johnny Williams (Centre).
As mentioned, the Falcons play Edinburgh the evening before they play us (24 Aug KO 19.45), as Griff said the whole of the Falcons squad will be used over the two games. That won’t mean that players are fatigued when they play us because I count that the Falcons have 47 first team squad plus 11 in the senior academy squad, not including our own Nick Civetta who they include in the first team squad. However the squad list doesn’t include any of the new signings which leads me to suspect it’s out of date. You get the point though, the Falcone are probably going to have over 50 players to choose from.
COYK
DONNY, DONNY, DONNY…
As Dougie said, we’ve done it before (beaten them art Castle Park) and we can do it again.
