By Leipziger
December 12 2004

If you’d been at the west side of Murrayfield at 5pm today, you’d never have guessed there was a match on. Then again, if you were on the east side, you’d never have guessed it was a big European Cup match between two of the world’s four northernmost professional clubs.

The lower tier of Murrayfield’s East Stand seated 4,326, the majority it seemed from Newcastle, as our Falcons took on Edinburgh looking to cement our place at the top of Pool 5.

 

Three of the four coaches which eventually occupied the Edinburgh coach park rolled out of the hallowed ground at 1pm, and after following a few fire engines down a blind alley and a trip to Tynecastle as we blindly followed Monkey’s bus (whose driver refused to turn his hazard lights off!) we all arrived safely about 4.30.

 

Our starting XV saw the return of Colin Charvis and (finally) Marius Hurter, and whilst Jonny Wilkinson was deemed fit enough to be on the bench, he was unfortunately joined by Stuart Grimes.  A lock with a pulled back muscle?  In this Falcon’s opinion he should either be fit to start or not be risked at all.

 

The visitors took the field to a rapturous reception from the travelling hordes, Edinburgh to a much lesser noise.  This set the tone for the evening as David Walder (still the only player to start every European Cup match Newcastle have ever played) kicked off into the Scottish night.  If I am fair, and I am, I’d say we never really threatened to score a try early on.  Referee Didier Méné seemed intent on penalising every tackled player for retaining the ball as soon as the tackler made contact, and coming up to the 20 minute mark gave a succession of penalties and scrums against us on our line.  My neutral head (which doesn’t show it’s ugly face very often) said that if Méné kept giving these awards, then he should have given a penalty try long before he sent Marius Hurter to the sin bin.

 

But after some valiant defending from our team, David Callum broke through to score a try under the posts which Chris Paterson converted.  The rest of the first half saw us still struggling to break down the Edinburgh defence, and we had to be content with Matt Burke kicking only one of three relatively simple penalties.

 

After we went in 7-3 down at half time, I had the interesting experience of being asked whether the lady selling hot drinks was my mother (must be European aways, after being asked in Munster whether or not I was Jonny Wilkinson!).

 

Returning to the big empty blue bowl I discovered that Walder had been replaced by Wilkinson at half time, and our little Farnhamite put in a canny performance to turn the game around.  He scored a quick penalty before ex-Falcon Phil Godman came on for the hosts and repeated the trick.  Losing 10-6, our European Cup season now hung in the balance.

 

Personally, if I’d been offered three wins at the start of the season I’d have taken it, and I think a lot of others would have too.  However, after a good start we weren’t going to settle for that now.  We want to get out of this group!

 

We kept attacking, and just like for their try, Edinburgh kept offending.  No yellow card though.  It was now injury time at the end of the game.  Our club’s biggest away following ever bar Cup Finals were shouting ourselves hoarse in support of the lads, and as the ball moved left, it came to Matt Burke.  What could our Aussie do?  He seemed to lose control and the ball slipped between a couple of defenders and over the Edinburgh line.  Had it been a knock on?  No, it was a kick, but which side would touch down first?  Who would get to the ball?  A sky blue shirt came from deep to drive 2,000 Geordies potty with a match winning try, and nobody seemed to know or care who’d scored!  After James Isaacson punched his satisfaction to the away supporters, Wilkinson’s conversion put us 10-13 up, with five minutes of extra time gone.

 

Was that it?  Don’t be silly.  With the Falcons, ‘that’ is never ‘it’.  Edinburgh came downfield and attacked in search of a winning try, kicking every penalty to the corner.  Opinion in the Murrayfield Bar afterwards suggested most Falcons would’ve settled for two points at that time, had Edinburgh taken the points.  But they didn’t, and it was win or bust for both teams.  Moving left, Edinburgh kept going through phases of attack, until finally we managed to turn over, and kick the ball downfield and out of play.  That was the last action of the match, as Didier Méné blew for full time.

 

Final score: Edinburgh 10 Newcastle 13!!!  We hadn’t played brilliantly, but the only thing that matters is the above statistic.  We are the only English team still with a 100% record in the Heineken Cup this season, and whatever happens, we need only to beat Gwent at home to secure top spot in the group and qualify for the quarter finals.  As he made his way to Kingston Park on May 4^th 2003, who’d have envisioned that?

 

Oh, I suppose I should mention the scorer of the try.  Nobody seemed to be sure and less seemed to care.  In the end it was confirmed that Michael Stephenson was the man who’d driven us crazy.  Not only was he Ma Leipziger’s player of the month, he was also her pick for first try!  Must have been inspired.

 

Man of the match?  At 11pm, still on the bus and having had countless beers over the last ten hours, how does a Falcon decide?  At a push I’d have to go for Colin Charvis, who as he has been all year was a “downright nuisance” (but for the rules of rugby etiquette, forgotten by Edinburgh fans at our kicks, I’d say something stronger) to the opposition all evening.  He was first into the tackles, and the one we can rely on for crucial turnovers.  A true Charva.

 

After Perpignan’s demolition of Gwent, the pool table now looks like this:

 

NEWCASTLE            17 points

Gwent                    10 points

Perpignan                10 points

Edinburgh                2 points

 

The mission is clear – one win from two games will see us through.  Hands up, who wishes our next game was Gwent at home?  Yes, mine is up too.

 

Yes, we’ve had scares in the last two games but at the end of the day it’s all about the result.

 

Special mention to the lads for coming to celebrate with the fans after the game.  It was also noticed that a few clapped us at the final whistle on their way to a guard of honour.  We’ll have that win, lose or draw from now on please.  And thanks for the win and for making some mutual appreciation possible.

 

The Toon Platoon got back to Kingston Park at 11.30pm after an excellent day in the European Cup.  Attention now switches to the equally-important defence of the Powergen Cup, starting in Watford next week.