Pertemps Bees may have lost the game but they won new friends with their performance and commitment in a 46-17 defeat by Powergen Cup holders Newcastle Falcons in their pre-season friendly at Kingston Park this evening. The game was a re-run of last season's Cup semi-final when heroism of the Pertemps Bees' impressed Newcastle's director of rugby Rob Andrew and persuaded him to offer this fixture to test his side for the forthcoming Premiership season. As with the semi-final Newcastle took a long time to break the Pertemps Bees' resistance and it was only in the final quarter that the full-timers made their higher league status count. It was 19-10 to Newcastle at half-time and a converted try from scrum-half Paul Knight immediately after the re-start gave Newcastle a fright in front of a 4,500 crowd as their lead was trimmed to just two points. So rattled were Newcastle that Jonny Wilkinson, who played his first full game since he helped England lift the World Cup last November, had to kick penalties before Newcastle eventually took control. Tim Walsh, Wilkinson's opposite number, landed an early penalty for Pertemps Bees who then won applause for their policy of running rather than kicking their subsequent penalties. Centre Shaun Woof continued his impressive start to the season by scoring a try just before the break when he gathered a crossfield kick which wrong-footed the home defence. Walsh added the first of his two conversions Phil Maynard, the Pertemps Bees' director of rugby, said: "I think we won a lot of friends for the way we played the game, we stood toe-to-toe with a side packed full of internationals for three-quarters of the match and I think that we can take enormous encouragement from our performance. "Once again Rob Andrew was very complimentary about the way we played and this time we came away without any injuries which was a huge bonus. Newcastle will be pleased that Jonny Wilkinson also came through unscathed but we made sure that he had a solid rather than spectacular game.

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