By Mally (19/09/03)
September 20 2003

After last weekend's rather "late start" to the season, a slightly re-jigged Newcastle Falcons line-up is looking to make amends when they take on Sale Sharks this Sunday.

Newcastle let Saracens get away from them in the first half last Sunday, and left themselves with too much to do, despite a furious fight back straight after half time.

Re-shuffled Falcons

This weekend sees Mark Mayerhofler return in the number 12 shirt with Tom May, who looked sharper last week than he has for a long time, switching to the wing. Although not on the official website's injury list (see Physio Room ) Joe Shaw is rumoured to be out injured so Ben Gollings moves to fullback. Ian Peel, one of the stars of last season, will be back in the starting front row & Micky Ward drops to the bench.

Rob's View

"We can't repeat Sunday's first half. We did all the hard work at the start of the second half and managed to claw back the points to make it equal pegging but we just didn't finish it off."

"Following on from last weekend's disappointing start, the team have worked hard in training this week and tried to be specific."

On paper it's not a bad side, Stu Grimes, Andy Mower and that other bloke may be off on international duty but we have more than adequate replacements. However so do Sale...

Sale Sharks

Luckily for Falcons it looks like the rumours of a possible Hodgeson cameo are unfounded, however even without their Jonny-Junior (sorry it had to be done!) Sale are going to be hard to beat. Unfortunately for Newcastle Braam van Straaten has recovered from injury and is set to make his Sharks' debut, replacing Jos Baxendell at flyhalf and no doubt will be on kicking duty. With Baxendell kicking Falcons could have given away the odd penalty and not really worried about it - but with God (that's Braam van Straaten to you non Tykes fans) playing then forget it - anything even 65m out is in range!!

There is an upside to Braam playing on Sunday, it'll be his first match this season so he'll be rusty, hopefully as rusty as some of the Falcons boys were last weekend and it'll be his first match playing alongside Bryan Redpath, who is getting some pre World Cup warm up match practice. Personally I think Braam best position is at 12 than 10, his second season at Leeds Tykes when he was playing 12 outside of Gordon Ross was far better than his first.

Braam's 'metronomic' presence may possibly encourage Sale to go for goal rather than run the ball. Even without the elusive Jason Robinson Sale have a classy back line with the likes of Bond, Hanley and Cueto, so I expect this will be a high scoring match, but one that Falcons can win.

Despite whalloping Newcastle Falcons 38 - 3 at Heywood Road back the last time the two sides met in January 2003, Sharks do not have a good track record at Kingston Park, having lost on their last 5 league visits.

The team need a win this week, back to back home game losses is not the way we want to start the season. We, the fans, need to make ourselves heard, cheering the team on and I don't just mean when we're winning! Sale fans have christened Kingston Park "Soulless" (see the Sale website's preview ) - let's prove them wrong on Sunday!!!

Teams Announced

Newcastle Falcons			Sale Sharks
1.	Ian Peel		1.	Andrew Sheridan
2.	Nick Makin		2.	Andy Titterrell
3.	Marius Hurter		3.	Barry Stewart
4.	Garath Archer		4.	Dean Schofield
5.	Mark Andrews (Capt)		5.	Chris Jones
6.	Epi Taione		6.	Alex Sanderson (Capt)
7.	Warren Britz		7.	Phil Davies
8.	Hugh Vyvyan		8.	Stuart Pinkerton
9.	Hall Charlton		9.	Bryan Redpath
10.	Dave Walder		10.	Braam van Straaten
11.	Tom May		11.	Steve Hanley
12.	Mark Mayerhofler		12.	Jos Baxendell
13.	Jamie Noon		13.	Graeme Bond
14.	Michael Stephenson		14.	Mark Cueto
15.	Ben Gollings		15.	Vaughan Going
Replacements			Replacements
16.	Micky Ward		16.	Matt Cairns
17.	Will Kay		17.	Kevin Yates
18.	Craig Hamilton		18.	Stuart Turner
19.	Phil Dowson		19.	Iain Fullarton
20.	James Grindal		20.	Jason White
21.	Phil Godman		21.	James Hoyle
22.	Alex Cadwallader		22.	Richard Wigglesworth

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