By Mally (18/01/04)
January 18 2004

Despite leading for most of this match Newcastle Falcons European run is now over. Montferrand fought back to win the second leg at Parc des Sports Marcel-Michelin by 12 points, giving them an overall win by 5 points.

Editor's Note: This is a summary based on the BBC Radio Newcastle Broadcast -unfortunately - I wasn't actually there!

Montferrand will now go on to play Saracens in the Challenge Cup quarter-final, and Falcons are now without a competitive match until their trip to Gloucester in February.

With only a 7 point margin of safety many fans (including me) had written off Falcons' chances before the game had even started.

Falcons got off to a good start, and listening on the radio to the match it sounded like they just might pull off a win after all.

The first half saw an early try from James Grindall scoring an early try and a drop goal from Tom May(!) giving Falcons a half time lead of 10 points.

Half time score: Montferrand 3 - Newcastle Falcons 13

It was a deferent story in the second half with 20 minutes or so to go Montferrand fought back with Raphael Chanal, Marc Reynaud and Oliver Magne all scoring tries to give Montferrand the win.

Final Score: Montferrand 25 - Newcastle Falcons 13

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You can listen to all of Newcastle Falcons matches on Radio Newcastle MW 1458 - commentary by Kevin Williams (this can also be accessed via the internet).