And nobody stood out more than Toby Flood, who was man of the match and played a superb game with foot, hands and brain like a man unleashed from a cage.  Unfortunately for the Falcons, Brian Ashton has also taken notice and called Noah to France for the World Cup to replace our own Jamie Noon.

Flood’s tactical kicking pushed Sale back into their right corner three times in a row for lineouts, and the fly-half kicked two early penalties to open the scoring.  However, from a lineout some lax tackling allowed Ben Foden take what just might have been a forward pass and score on the left as the Falcons ran out of defenders.

Flood then missed two penalties, the first around the 22 after he kicked and chased and was challenged late on halfway, but the home side’s dominance of territory was almost total.

The first Newcastle try finally came just minutes before half-time a Leipy emerged from the bar to a huge roar from the KP faithful, not for himself but for Tom May having put down our opening score of the season, sealing an 11-5 half-time lead.

Sale began the second period looking like a different team, and made most of the play early in the half.  A threatening run from a turnover was stopped though by a monster tackle into touch on the left by a home defender.

Home fans’ nerves were temporarily settled when Flood seemed to attempt a drop-goal, but it turned into a crossfield kick which Ollie Phillips caught, and after rounding a defender on the touchline the winger passed inside to Mark Mayerhofler who steamed in unopposed for the second try, which Flood converted.

A chance went begging when Flood took a pass on the far right and tapped behind the defence, but as the ball went into touch play was brought back for an infringement.

Just before the hour things became a little tense, with a lack of tackling again leading to a Sale try, this time Lee Thomas broke through a small gap to go under the posts, reducing the scoreline to 18-12.

However, Sale replacement Chris Jones was sin-binned for taking the tireless Geoff Parling out in the air on halfway, and this led to three home penalty lineouts in theleft corner.  After the second maul was again pulled down our visitors received a final warning, and so we wisely kept attacking and that unlikeliest of players James Grindal was taken over the line.  Flood converted, and just seconds later made a fantastic break from an overthrown Sale lineout in their own 22.

He slipped a pass over the shoulder to Phillips, who ran through a gaping hole in Sale’s defence for the bonus point try with a quarter of an hour still to go.

A chip through saw Sale spill the ball and hold us up, as the crowd roared the Falcons on to hopefully further tries which never came as we lost the ensuing scrum.  We weren’t to be denied icing on the cake though, with Flood capping an excellent team and individual performance with a drop-goal three minutes from time.

33-12, what a cracking start to the season, driven by a display of pace, intelligence and intent, which will hopefully be replicated on Sunday in Reading.

If, and of course it is a big if, we can maintain this form and even improve on it when Flood, Noon, Tait, Wilkinson and Hayman are available again, this could be a big season to be a Falcons fan.

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