Bates wants Falcons to produce their top stuff

Feb 9 2010 by Nick Purewal, The Journal

STEVE Bates believes Newcastle Falcons can match powerful Northampton in intimidating circumstances on Saturday – provided the players step it up a level.

Confident his men can make it happen at Franklin’s Gardens, Falcons boss Bates said his side will not fear getting involved.

Anticipating one of the fiercest contests of the campaign when the Premiership gets back into swing, rugby director Bates said his men will have no worries fronting up to the highly-charged atmosphere as well as the talented Saints team.

After working hard on specific areas of their game in the last month during the European and Anglo-Welsh window, the experimentation is over and this week is all about honing in on their top-level game.

So often the underused ploy at Kingston Park, the rolling maul came to the fore in Cardiff two weeks ago, and while the Falcons failed to score from the ruse against Wasps they still deployed the weapon effectively.

Expecting the tight aspects of Saturday’s Midlands trip to dominate the initial proceedings, Bates backed his men to mix it with the impressive Northampton pack.

Newcastle face six straight Premiership games before their European Challenge Cup quarter-final with Cardiff in April, with London Irish, Worcester Bath, Saracens and Harlequins in the offing after Northampton.

The Falcons worked hard for little reward at the weekend, but Bates knows end-product is all that counts now – and he backed his men to deliver.

“Northampton are a very good side, a very settled one too,” said Bates, “and they have great support at home.

“It’s probably going to be a sell-out contest down there, they usually are, and the rugby public there always get right behind their team.

“But we’re not worried by that, we’ll take it in our stride and play our game.

“We’ve worked on a number of things with this Premiership return in mind, and now we have to bring all the different strands together and make sure we can compete in every area.

“They offer threats all over the field, they can come at you from any situation and we have to be able to do the same.

“However, it is funny because in the high-pressure games we have tended to fare much better this year, players often raise their game when the chips are down – but we need to be able to hit those heights consistently.”