In front of a bumper crowd on a balmy Kingston Park day, the Falcons went into half-time ahead before Bath ground out a win in a poor second half, leaving us with only one bonus point when four were needed.

Hall Charlton was brought into the starting lineup in place of Micky Young while Charlie Amesbury and Will Welch also returned, as the Falcons looked to end a run of five matches without a win and beat Bath at home for the first time in nearly six and a half years.

The Falcons began with a gameplan of peppering Bath's left hand corner with high balls, taking advantage of the sun shining from the west, but it was the visitors who got on the scoreboard first as Matt Banahan, the last man on the end of a flowing attack, went over in the left corner with Brent Wilson unable to make the try-saving tackle.

Olly Barkley Shaves His Legs missed the conversion and the Falcons hit back quickly. Again, the ball was spread out to the left and Rob Vickerman scored in the corner, and Jimmy Gopperth's conversion put us into the lead.

Although a lot of the game was played around the fringes with Bath regularly straying offside and slowing the black ball down, and there being the usual amount of aimless kicking from both teams, Newcastle did get the crowd going at times as Gopperth looked to run when he had opportunities, and Danny Williams' pace was also a threat to Bath.

Indeed, one break from Gopperth, who had his best game for a while, almost ended in a try after he beat a number of defenders before being tackled close to the line.

However the half ended without any further scores, as another Gopperth penalty missed.

With David Barnes, Pieter Dixon and Duncan Bell having had a going over from the home front row in the first half, all three were replaced at the break with David Wilson making a first appearance in an away shirt at KP. The three new faces stabilised their pack and helped the Bath forwards lay the foundation for the second half in which there was plenty of effort from our team but unfortunately not enough creativity and quality.

Nick Abendanon fought over for the opening try of the second 40, although Barkley couldn't convert to leave the scores tied at 10-10. Not another draw surely?

No. After both Gopperth and Barkley missed long-range penalties, Bath finally made the breakthrough with a third score by our old boy Wilson, and the conversion took them seven points ahead. With ten minutes left, Gopperth knocked over a penalty to reduce the deficit, but the Falcons struggled to get the ball in the final stages.

Finally, on an attack in the Bath 22, the away side kicked the ball out and the referee blew for full-time with a full minute left on the clock. Carl Hayman led the protests, however one home fan claimed the clock had stopped for a while during open play, so while the end was controversial JP Doyle may well have been correct.

It's a shame he didn't pay as much attention to Bath's offsides and high tackles as he obviously did to his watch, but the referee is certainly not the reason the Falcons lost today.

It was the same old problems of the forwards getting the ball, and Young and Charlton providing inconsistent service before the rest of the backs attempted to barge through the middle rather than using the wide men. Tane Tu'ipulotu seemed more guilty of this than most. One good thing, there were a lot fewer knock-ons and silly errors today, or so it seemed, we just struggled with to make any impact a lot of the time we had possession.

Fortunately Sale's defeat means we have stolen another point on them, but they have a game in hand before we play again. If they win that we will be three points off bottom.

That game on April 24^th is looming large and we really don't want to be going down to Stockport needing to win. There are four games before then and all need to be won. Somehow.

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