By Leipziger
February 15 2007

The Newcastle branch of the RFU sends a team to Bristol this weekend, without England fly-half Jonny Wilkinson after he had one of the hardest games of his life v Italy at Twickenham last weekend, but with Toby Flood and Mathew Tait available as well as Matthew Burke the Pommie. Only our second visit to the Memorial Stadium in almost four and a half years, our Premiership form this season suggests a win on Sunday since we lost at Leicester last time out, however since winning the title in 1998 Bristol has not been a happy hunting ground for the Falcons, with five successive defeats and Richard Hill’s side are having an excellent season.

The last came ten months ago on April 9th when a lackluster Geordie side went down 23-7. Matthew Burke scored the only away try of the afternoon whilst David Lemi crossed twice for Bristol, Jason Strange converting both and hitting three penalties to leave the Falcons sweating further in the relegation battle.

Going back to Wilkinson, the World Cup winner should have made his first domestic start for 4½ months on Sunday, but is apparently suffering “bumps, bruises and strains”. His last full club game was in the reverse fixture back in November, when he converted Brent Wilson’s try (Mathew Tait and Matt Thompson also scoring), and kicked two penalties and a drop goal as the Falcons beat the South Westerners for the first time since October 2001 by a score of 26-21. Just over 6,000 saw the game at Kingston Park.

Bristol have been one of the form teams in the Premiership this season. They currently stand second behind Leicester by a single point, but do have a game in hand. Our hosts’ last outing was a successful visit to Northampton on January 27th when Brian “The Chiropractor” Lima and Alfie To’oala Vaeluaga scored the tries, and they have not been beaten at the Memorial Stadium (or indeed, Ashton Gate) in 2006/07.

Only Saracens have avoided defeat at Bristol this year, back in September with a 13-13 draw, however this was followed by nine successive victories over teams of the standard of Bath (twice), Newport (in Europe), Sale and Gloucester.

Apart from the absence of Wilkinson, the Falcons have named a pretty much full-strength starting XV with Matthew Burke and Joe McDonnell both in the team and an all-England midfield of Tait, Noon and Flood.

15 Matthew Burke (captain)
14 Tom May
13 Mathew Tait
12 Jamie Noon
11 John Rudd
10 Toby Flood
9 Lee Dickson

1 Joe McDonnell
2 Andy Long
3 Micky Ward
4 Mark Sorenson
5 Jason Oakes
6 Geoff Parling
7 Ben Woods
8 Russell Winter

Replacements:
David Wilson
Matt Thompson
Andy Buist
Brent Wilson
Mark Mayerhofler
James Grindal
Loki Crichton