By Leipziger
December 15 2006

Sunday afternoon rugby returns to Kingston Park for the first time in 2006/07 this weekend as Montauban visit the North East for the return leg of our European Challenge Cup tie, the Falcons defending an unbeaten home record in the group stages of the competition. Indeed, the last Sunday afternoon match at KP saw our only home defeat in the Challenge Cup, the infamous semi-final against London Irish who led 3-27 at one point before finally dumping us out of the tournament 22-27.

One ECC record has already gone this season, Montauban having handed us a second group defeat of the season for the first time, winning 16-10 at the Stade du Sapiac.

That result leaves us third in the group at the halfway point, with six points to Montauban’s nine and Brive’s fourteen. This means that the Falcons are all but out of the running to win Pool 3, however one of three best runners-up spots is still possible if we can grab three bonus point wins and, which we will likely also need, Brive beat Montauban in January.

Not much else to say since the two sides met just a week ago, so straight to the team news.

Only two changes have been made to the Falcons team after last Friday’s defeat, with Tim Visser and James Grindal replacing John ‘Hufanga’ Rudd and Lee Dickson. Loki Crichton is on the bench, having replaced Phil Dowson in our European squad, alongside the returning Geoff Parling, Mark Mayerhofler and Johnny Williams.

15 Matthew Burke (captain)
14 Tom May
13 Mathew Tait
12 Jamie Noon
11 Tim Visser
10 Toby Flood
9 James Grindal
1 Jon Golding
2 Matt Thompson
3 Micky Ward
4 Andy Perry
5 Jason Oakes
6 Eni Gesinde
7 Ben Woods
8 Brent Wilson

Replacements:
Johnny Williams
Rob Vickers
Geoff Parling
Andy Buist
Mark Mayerhofler
Lee Dickson
Loki Crichton