Newcastle Falcons v Gloucester match thoughts

Last night saw Newcastle Falcons take on Gloucester at Kingston Park.

For me personally it's great to be able to walk out the house and watch Gloucester on my doorstep. As I've said in a previous blog about the importance of Newcastle Falcons, I really hope Falcons get themselves the investment that they need.

Pre-match

On paper I knew that Gloucester were going to be stronger, but we don't always perform at Kingston Park and coming off the back of the disappointment at Twickenham last week I was hopeful but a bit nervy.

I knew Falcons would be fired up for this one, with Jamie Blamire and Callum Chick playing their last home game for Falcons before moves to Leicester and Northampton in the summer.

I was stood in The North Stand and got there early to watch the warm ups. Seeing one of the Gloucester kickers kicking at goal and managing to land the ball right on someones pint was a highlight. The bloke covered in beer was back to the bar for another, great to see Gloucester helping the bar sales at Kingston Park.

Gloucester warming up.

The match

The sun was still shining at kick off, but think a few optimists in the crowd may have regretted their shorts option later on! There was strong support from Gloucester as always at Kingston Park and a warm welcome from Falcons. The match itself started with an exchange of fairly low quality kicks, personally the kicking from both teams was fairly poor for most of the evening.

Falcons scored an early try through Ben Stevenson, at that point I was fearing the worst as it looked like Gloucester hadn't got off the bus. Gloucester then had phases of attacking play but the Falcons defence looked like they'd done their homework and were able to deal with it fairly comfortably. At times during the match once Gloucester went through a few phases it looked like they lacked ideas in attack.

Eventually Chris Harris scored on his return to his former club, I thought Harris was excellent again last night and whichever club gets him have got a good one.

Falcons then lost their talisman Chick to the sin bin followed by Cameron Neild for pulling a driving maul down which resulted in a penalty try. Then from kick off Seb Atkinson did some superb work scoring, these were key moments that turned the game and made it difficult for Falcons come back. After this after a break in play which saw Who let the dogs out by Baha Men played, it was nearly made for Ruan Ackermann to score. Unfortunately his effort was ruled out for offside at the maul. So was my Ru let the dogs out joke..... It also meant Gloucester didn't have a crucial bonus point try going into half time, the score being 5-21.

Falcons attacking in the second half.

At half time there was a stag party doing kicks at goal, some junior rugby on the pitch but also some nice and amusing moments in front of us. Jamal Ford-Robinson was getting asked by a couple of kids watching if they could touch the ball, he passed them it and got the ball back eventually. Jamal also did some passing with one of the ball boys behind the posts, these are things that are great to see, I'm sure that ball boy will remember that. The more amusing bit was when Caolan Englefield also gave the group of kids a ball and when he asked for it back they wouldn't give it back. The crowd were encouraging the kids not to give it back and in the end I think Caolan had to ask one of their mums for it back, the kids wouldn't pick on a prop but would on a scrum half!

Anyway to the second half, Falcons to their credit looked a lot more dangerous in attack with Obatoyinbo and the introduction of Pepper and Davis from the bench. Gloucester scored a try through Cotgreave who on his first start I thought did well, he could've had a second not long after but unfortunately dropped the ball. The Gloucester scrum started to get on top but couldn't capitalise. There was some good defence when Harris was yellow carded and Falcons were held up over the line.

Finally the moment of the match was the Falcons try for Davis after a strong run down the left from Stevenson, Falcons may have to hold back on their try of the season a bit later next year as that would've been a contender! There was a late red card for Stevenson which could've been yellow on another day but was in the last ten minutes so wouldn't have made too much of a difference either way.

Overall thoughts

I was probably a little frustrated which is bizarre as five point wins away in The Premiership aren't to be taken for granted. I guess I feel Gloucester didn't kick on in the second half and certainly weren't at their attacking best again, I really wanted to see Gloucester blow Falcons away second half and instead it seemed like they thought the game was won. Some credit for that goes to the Falcons who didn't give in and stuck to their guns, you can't fault any of their players for effort or commitment.

For Gloucester, if you'd said going into the last game of the season there would still be a chance of top four I certainly would've taken that. What will be will be ultimately and they might well look back on the defeat at Exeter away as being the difference if they don't achieve top four.

Like I said earlier, I hope Falcons get the investment that they need and the game needs. There's a lot of very good hard working people involved at Falcons and the sooner that investment comes in whatever form the better.

Next for me

I'll be previewing North Wales v Newcastle Thunder later on today. I've also made the decision that from next season I'm going to cover Newcastle Falcons alongside Newcastle Thunder, I'm based up here and I know that there's more to sport than football. Rugby has been good to me and I want to in my way promote that through this platform.

I know there's too much potential up here that with the right investment Falcons can work and continue to inspire the people of the north east, so I'll do my bit to promote that through this platform. As ever feel free to follow me on my socials available through my website but I'm on Linkedin, X, Instagram and Facebook. If you like what I do then hit the like button and feel free to comment too.