Ashley Wells is hoping to make it third time lucky for Newcastle Falcons as they welcome London Irish to Kingston Park this afternoon, reports MARK SMITH
LAST Saturday’s 30-24 loss in Bath saw some notable firsts for Newcastle Falcons.
As well as producing their first losing bonus point away from home in almost a year and a half, Newcastle scored three tries on the road for the first time in well over two seasons, Jimmy Gopperth attempted his first drop-goal of the year – his first two, in fact – and for the first time in the entire campaign Ashley Wells was not involved.
The 26-year-old South African had, until then, taken an active part in all 23 of the Falcons’ matches in all competitions, running out 13 times in Aviva Premiership action, six times in the Amlin Challenge Cup and a further four in the LV= Cup.
This afternoon sees the former Griquas scrummager returned to the Newcastle bench, aiming to reverse the trend against a London Irish side which has got the better of his troops twice already this term.
The Exiles were 46-29 victors in league action back in September, with a 39-23 scoreline the following month in Anglo-Welsh action. Wells said: “Irish have had the better of it so far this season, but both of those games have been down in Reading.
“It will be great to have our home crowd supporting us this afternoon at Kingston Park, but we know that London Irish are a strong outfit. It is very promising what we can do here, and it is a great opportunity for us.”
With countryman Gary Gold taking charge of his second Premiership game, all attention is on trying to rein in the nine-point gap between themselves and London Wasps at the foot of the table. Wells insisted: “Things are optimistic, and there is a new spirit in the squad.
“The new coaches have come in with a lot of knowledge behind them, and the boys are keen to impress. We want to get Newcastle back on a winning roll and for the club to move forward.”
Finding grounds for hope even in last week’s defeat, the loose-head added: “We had trailed early in the game, but we came back to lead at half-time and you have to give credit for the way we stuck it out in the end. You can take positives from every situation as you look to build, and if we stick to our structures as a team we know we can do some damage in this league.
“We had a ten-minute period at Bath with a man in the sin-bin where they slipped in for two tries, and the major thing we took out was that our discipline around the ruck area was not as tight as it should have been. We were made to pay for that, but if you look at the 80 minutes overall then it was a pretty positive performance.”
