By Leipziger
July 19 2005

We're continuing our Falcons At 10 series with Leipziger's look back to the Saracens home game in March 1998, the meeting of second and first in the Premiership.

The date was Wednesday March 25^th 1998.  The place was Kingston Park.  Newcastle were second in the Premiership, just two points behind leaders Saracens, but with two games in hand over the Watford boys.  And for the first time that season, the two clubs were about to clash.

 

The two best teams in the country were supposed to have met up north on December 21^st, but our European Conference Semi-final in Agen meant a postponement, and now the game would take place under the confining KP floodlights with 6,000 Geordies packed into the ground.

 

After winning our first 12 matches of the season, our previous outing had been a 30-17 defeat at Richmond, whilst Saracens had also recently gone down to Gloucester.  The form screw was tightened against the Falcons slightly by the fact that we had never beaten Saracens in five previous league and cup meetings.

 

The Falcons team selection was most interesting.  Although Jonny Wilkinson was already hailed as the superstar he would become and was only a week and a half away from his England debut, he was making his first Premiership start in the centre alongside Alan Tait, up against Philippe Sella and Michael Lynagh.  Martin Shaw also replaced Tony Underwood on the left wing.  Coaches Rob Andrew and Francois Pienaar both fielded themselves in the following teams:

 

Newcastle: S Legg, J Naylor, J Wilkinson, A Tait, M Shaw, R Andrew, G Armstrong, N Popplewell, R Nesdale, P Van-Zandvliet, G Archer, D Weir, P Lam, R Arnold, D Ryan ©.

Saracens: M Singer, R Constable, P Sella, S Ravenscroft, B Daniel, M Lynagh, K Bracken, R Grau, G Chuter, P Wallace, P Johns, D Grewcock, A Bennett, F Pienaar, T Diprose ©.

 

The referee for this match, which the whole of English rugby had waited months for, was Brian Campsall (with no less than TTP as one of the touch judges!).

 

The Newcastle forwards battered Saracens throughout the first half, and converted tries from Stuart Legg and Nick Popplewell, as well as a penalty from Andrew, answered Lynagh’s penalty and conversion of Tony Diprose’s try.  After the break, although Lynagh banged over a further five penalties to attempt to kick Saracens to a win and probably the Championship, we would not be denied and Falcons super-sub Peter Walton crossed to put the icing on the Newcastle cake, Andrew converting and adding another two penalties for a tight 30-25 victory.

 

The victory took us back to the top of the table on points difference over the Fez Boyz with an extra game to play, although we still had to visit Vicarage Road a month later.  But for now, a famous win was secured and Newcastle had shown that they could attract big crowds to Kingston Park for rugby games.