Newcastle Falcons 14, Worcester Warriors 3
Nov 2 2009 by Nick Purewal, The Journal
BELYING ghastly conditions, Newcastle Falcons doubled up their Guinness Premiership win count in a truly horrible encounter.
At the end of a wretched second half, when Kiwi fly-half Jimmy Gopperth landed the coffin-nailing penalty, to a man the Falcons will not have cared about the wretched wind and soaked turf.
Hooker Rob Vickers bullocked home for the game’s only try after 15 minutes, Gopperth adding the only other score of the half with a penalty just before the half hour.
The former Auckland Blue landed two more after the turnaround in a turgid second half that to the Falcons will look quite beautiful when they watch the video back this week.
Falcons rugby director Steve Bates might have felt circumspect about several sloppy passages of play from his team, but there was to be no underselling the importance of the win.
After the four-try fun in the sun that was Bath last Saturday, Bates was pleased his men came through with the imperative victory.
“It’s a massively significant win for us,” beamed Bates. “We looked a bit nervous in closing out the game but we deserved the result.
“If we hadn’t capitalised on Bath that would have been a waste of that win. In the past we’ve been prone to doing something like Bath and then sitting back and not being ruthless enough.”
No weather for ghouls and ghosts on Hallowe’en, the evil spirits clearly too busy to bother with the elements. Instead those fiendish imps and pixies wreaked havoc on an unsuspecting Kingston Park, through wind and rain.
The early-morning deluge soaked the turf wet through, so even though sparks of sunshine met kick-off, the sodden conditions meant for nothing but up-your-jumper stuff. Good thing then that the Falcons followed through with their predicted scrummage superiority, smashing the Warriors up front right from the first pack-down.
An error-strewn start saw Gopperth lose his line-kicking radar with three early percentage efforts, but after that the Falcons struck.
Forcing Worcester to carry over their line twice in succession, Newcastle powered into the left corner through Rob Vickers after a good burst by Mark Sorenson.
On the front foot and in control at the coalface, the Falcons should have built a lead, but other than a Gopperth penalty spent the rest of the half frustrated.
