By Leipziger
April 6 2006

The Falcons visit Bristol for the first time in 3½ years on Sunday in a battle of two of the Premiership’s lower ranked teams.

Bristol sit ninth on 36 points, with us sandwiched between the south-westerners and bitter rivals Bath.  Bristol have acclimatised well to the top division after promotion last season, winning at Kingsholm 15-20 in their last game two weeks ago with tries from the Chiropractor Brian Lima and England hopeful Shaun Perry.

                                                                               

Back in September Bristol visited Kingston Park for our first home game of the season, and stole a tight 14-16 win with Matthew Burke missing a last ditch conversion of Jamie Noon’s try, meaning we have been defeated by Bristol in our last four meetings (the last duel in Bristol, in November 2002, saw the home side hammer us 38-10).  The game saw Owen Finegan’s league debut for Newcastle, as well as Phil Dowson producing a man of the match performance.  Unfortunately, a neck injury meant it would likely be his last match of the season.  The teams that day:

 

Newcastle: M Burke, T May, J Noon 1T, M Mayerhofler, A Elliott, D Walder 3P (T Flood, 80), H Charlton (J Grindal, 56), M Ward (I Peel, 40), M Thompson (A Long, 34), R Morris (T Paoletti, 61), A Perry (G Parling, 61), S Grimes, M McCarthy (O Finegan, 40), C Charvis ©, P Dowson.
Bristol: B Stortoni, L Robinson, R Higgitt, M Contepomi, V Going (YC), J Strange 1C 3P, S Perry 1T, D Hilton (S Nelson, 65-80), M Regan (A Clarke, 65), D Crompton, M Sambucetti, G Llewellyn (R Winters, 52), M Salter ©, C Short, G Lewis (D Ward-Smith, 65).

 

Bristol’s home form has been patchy this season.  London Irish were victorious 21-20 in the Memorial Ground’s last rugby match, and Saracens and Gloucester have also won at Bristol in the Premiership.  Bristol lost both home Powergen Cup matches to Gloucester and Ospreys, and drew with Wasps at home.  However, good wins have come against Bath, Leeds, Sale and Leicester, and in all three European Challenge Cup matches against Narbonne, Northampton and Viadana, though they didn’t qualify for the quarter-finals.

 

Coaches Richard Hill and Martin Haag have built a solid, experienced though unspectacular squad, with few big names.  World Cup winner Mark Regan is one of a host of former Bath players, including Sam Cox, Ross Blake and internationals Geraint Lewis and Dave Hilton.  Hilton and Regan form a formidable front row with former Richmond prop Darren Crompton, with Welsh star Gareth Llewellyn providing graft in the second row.  Back row talent is provided by captain Matt Salter and former Harlequin Roy Winters.

 

Behind the scrum, Perry and Jason Strange pull the strings for Manuel Contepomi, Brian Lima, Mark Denney and Vaughan Going.

 

Our biggest link with Bristol, whom we first met in a Cup match in 1975, is Garath Archer, who had two spells at the Memorial Ground in between three stints with Newcastle Gosforth / Falcons.  This trend is continued in the Bristol current squad, with Regan, Hilton and Denney both having played there earlier in their careers before finding fame elsewhere, and Salter and Craig Short having played for Leeds and Rotherham respectively whilst Bristol were in the 1^st division.

 

Bristol have named the following team for Sunday:

15 Vaughan Going

14 Lee Robinson

13 Rob Higgitt

12 Sam Cox

11 Brian Lima

10 Jason Strange

9 Shaun Perry

1 David Hilton

2 Mark Regan

3 Darren Crompson

4 Nathan Budgett

5 Gareth Llewellyn

6c Matt Salter

7 Joe El Abd

8 Dan Ward-Smith

 

16 Mark Irish

17 Saul Nelson

18 Roy Winters

19 Mariano Sambucetti

20 Craig Short

21 Danny Gray

22 David Lemi

 

Newcastle make five changes to the side which beat Connacht, with Joe Shaw replacing Anthony Elliott and Robbie Morris, Andy Long, Andy Perry and Andy Buist coming into the front five.  The pack is set for a hard slog as we look for only our third win in Bristol, and the first since December 1997:

 

15 Matthew Burke

14 Tom May
13 Jamie Noon
12 Mark Mayerhofler
11 Joe Shaw
10 Toby Flood
9 Hall Charlton

1 Micky Ward
2 Andy Long
3 Robbie Morris
4 Andy Perry
5 Andy Buist
6 Mike McCarthy
7 Cory Harris
8c Colin Charvis

16 Jonny Williams
17 Matt Thompson
18 Owen Finegan
19 Ben Woods
20 James Grindal
21 Dave Walder
22 Anthony Elliott