Crucial try

By Leipziger
August 3 2009

Part two of my top ten matches has the flavour of a relegation battle to it, with two games from this very year, as well as just one of the many glorious days we've enjoyed when the Pussycat Empire came marching north but were sent home with their tails between their legs.  

8 Sale (A) 08/03/2009

Earlier this year the Falcons went on a six-match winning run in the Premiership, our best run since 1998, and there were some great occasions along the way, but for tension and sheer unlikeliness of victory, one of the top ones was the visit to the Final Resting Place of Cyber-Threats / Mud Bath, or to give Sale's Stockport stadium its proper name, Edgeley Park.

The Sky cameras had turned up to watch the game which was played on a pitch thin on grass, and reality dawned for the noisy travelling Falcons when an early try helped put us 13-0 down after ten minutes, a week after we'd been 19-0 up at Northampton at that stage a week earlier. Tom May and Charlie Hodgson exchanged penalties but despite our possession we couldn't get over the line until Jon Golding scored just before half time.

What came in the second half was slightly reminiscent of another match v Sale whioch will be discussed later in this series. Danny Williams' try and May's conversion put us ahead for the first time at 16-18 but Hodgson kicked another quick penalty, and we then got our first glimpse of Andrew Fenby on the wing, the replacement scoring with his first touch!

The Falcons survived Tim Swinson's sin-binning level at 25-25 thanks to two more Hodgson penalties, and while the Geordies in the corner of the ground might have been content with a draw, our expectations had been heightened in recent weeks and we wanted a win!

It wasn't over though, and when through a load of players white hands were seen placing the ball down the away fans went crazy – Brent Wilson had won the game for us! Sale attacked but their best chance went when a pass went behind Oriol Ripol, and a third successive away win was secure!

There have been more vital wins certainly, and more comfortable ones, but little beats the satisfaction of going away to a good side, playing very well and in the end beating them soundly. The try bonus point just made it better – our second in four games having waited 18 months since the previous one in the league!

It was to be our last away win of 2009/10, but it again showed what the Falcons are capable of if they play to their potential more consistently. If only.

7 Leicester (H) 16/03/2003

There are some matches that end so nervously, one per cent of you stops caring whether the Falcons win or not but that you could just escape the tension and find out the score later, whatever it will be. Then again, we wouldn't watch or love our team if it was boring, would we?

The first time I had this particular feeling was in March 2003 when double European and quadruple English Champions Leicester came to Kingston Park. We were still in the depths of a relegation battle, helped though by ten points from our previous three matches since The Great Escape began, and despite our illustrious opposition nothing less than a win was acceptable.

In the midst of the Six Nations, Leicester left a number of big names on the bench but went ahead through a Steve Booth try early on, though a solo try from Michael Stephenson and an extra kick from captain Jonny Wilkinson put us 13-10 up at half time. As the big guns entered the battle, we had both Mark Andrews and Andrew Mower sin-binned in the second half, but Jamie Noon's try gave us an 11-point lead with half an hour to go.

Two tries from Leicester either side of another Wilkinson penalty led to a 24-22 scoreline in the final few minutes, with a season and possibly 125 years of history hanging by a knife ahead of the following match at Kingsholm. It was not just the points – the confidence boost from beating Leicester in such tight circumstances would be immense.

Leicester ran penalties from their own half and attacked, I feared to watch but could not turn my eyes away, and I'm sure I was just one of many among the 9,104 at KP that afternoon to feel the same way.

After what had felt like a ten-hour match, we finally won a penalty which was kicked to touch and it was all over! We were four points clear of bottom spot, and though there were still four games left in the season, another gigantic step towards survival had been taken.

Apart from the almost-unbearable tension, another recollection I have of this game was that it was, at the time, by a mile the best atmosphere I'd ever known at KP. Don't tell Rob Andrew, but the fact we were stuck in a big relegation battle was the reason for the first ever 9,000-plus crowd at the stadium and they responded. Every time Leicester attacked or had set plays near our line roars of “Falcons! Falcons! Falcons!”

The silver lining of that horrible season was the impact it had on our crowds and fan base, boosted again by the Cup win the following year. What a shame it didn't last and we are still finding it difficult to attract these numbers regularly.

6 Gloucester (H) 11/01/2009

I wonder whether this game, which started off our six-game winning run in the league seven months ago, is destined to be the forgotten one of the sequence. Perhaps it's because it came before two European games, and over a month before Friday 13^th, a match which I have suggested was the biggest league match ever in English rugby.

However, the win over Gloucester was vital and it was achieved through determination, willpower and heart, with the Falcons' signature moments of tension, and it put us seven, points clear of Bristol. I certainly believe it deserves to be up there with Friday 13^th in our history books.

On a windy afternoon, Rory Clegg, on his last Premiership start for us, missed two kicks but converted Danny Williams' try that gave us the lead at half time.

Clegg was replaced at the break with Steve Jones and Tom May moved to fly-half, where he'd spend most of the rest of the season, initially controversially, often spectacularly. But Rory Lawson, who struggled to put the ball into the scrum in the first half, equalised early in the second and our new, attractive style of rugby couldn't get us back on the scoreboard.

Until it happened. Thinking back to last season, it is perhaps the one moment I can remember more clearly than any other. With ten minutes to go, we were given a penalty within kicking range. It was very kickable, but it was also the most important of Tom May's career by that point and though nobody said it, everybody knew what it would mean if he scored and we went on to win the match.

I tried to think positive, willing Tom to score as Kingston Park fell as silent as a morgue. I nervously watched him prepare to take the kick, as Ma Leipy turned away with nerves. The ball crept ever so slowly towards the goal, and as the touch judges' flags rose everybody with a black heart felt a huge sense of joy and relief! We needed these four points to badly and they were in sight.

Gloucester attacked but our defence held out to stop them going to the top of the table but millions of times more important was that it was out first league win in three and a half months and put us clear of Bristol on the bottom.

The whole team were given man of the match, and had the confidence from beating a top team to go to Bristol and get what we needed. We all know what happened there, but for any Falcons fans who were on Mars in February, there'll be a reminder later...