9th September 2005
Issued on behalf of Newcastle Falcons
Newcastle Falcons have made five changes to their pack, plus two positional switches, as they prepare for the visit of newly-promoted Bristol in Sunday's Guinness Premiership clash at Kingston Park (kick-off 2.30pm).
Australian flanker Owen Finegan is in line to make his Premiership debut from the bench after summer knee surgery, having come through 40 minutes for the club's Development team on Monday night.
Meanwhile, in the starting XV for Sunday there is a whole new front row as Micky Ward, Matt Thompson and England prop Robbie Morris replace Ian Peel, Andy Long and Tino Paoletti respectively.
In the second row Stuart Grimes returns for Geoff Parling, while a haematoma in the leg from last Friday's narrow defeat at Sale Sharks sees Cory Harris miss out.
Captain Colin Charvis moves from No.8 to openside flanker to fill Harris's vacated berth, with Mike McCarthy coming in to the pack at blindside and Phil Dowson switching from there to No.8.
The back line, however, remains unchanged, and includes left wing Anthony Elliott, who scored two well-taken tries on his league debut last Friday at Edgeley Park.
Explaining his decision to ship in virtually a whole new front five, director of rugby Rob Andrew said: "There are ten months left this season, and if we are to achieve anything we need two packs of forwards who are capable of operating very effectively in the Premiership. Both packs need to stay fresh as long as possible between now and May, when we hope to be in the Premiership final.
"In order to do that, particularly because of the physical nature of forward play, we have to ensure we have two packs within our squad that you basically can't tell the difference between.
"We tried to do it last year, and were going well until Christmas, but with Marius Hurter leaving and Colin Charvis getting injured it fell apart somewhat. The pressure came on the front row as a result and our season was destroyed, but now we feel we finally have the resource to have two groups of front five forwards who can compete at a high Premiership level."
Assessing the league in general, he added: "The attrition rate and the physicality in that we see in the game these days is immense, as you could see from the six matches last weekend, some of which were basically 80 minutes of sheer warfare.
"For that reason we have gone for a 5/2 forward split on the bench this Sunday, and we will do that for much of the season because there aren't any small packs around in the Premiership these days - every game is fierce."
On his own squad's strength in depth, Andrew said: "We have Cory Harris and Andy Buist to come back from injury, and people like Luke Gross and David Wilson can't even get in to the match-day 22 despite us fielding five forwards on the bench, so we finally have the sort of competition for places that we need.
"Then you look at the bench and we have Owen Finegan, plus Jonny Wilkinson, Andy Long and Tino Paoletti, who have all played Test rugby."
With the Falcons back row seeing a number of positional changes, Andrew is adamant that the flow will not be affected, stating: "Cory Harris picked up a haematoma against Sale last weekend, hecould have been touch and go for Sunday, but he hasn't trained all week, so why risk it? "Colin Charvis has played a lot for us at openside, he plays there for Wales and it will not change our game one bit to have him there.
"Phil Dowson shifts to No.8, but he played well there all last season, so we are lucky to have these guys who can play any number of positions, such as Mike McCarthy who went well at blindside last year and comes in to the side for Sunday."
Despite being newly promoted, opponents Bristol started life in the Guinness Premiership with a win last weekend at home to local rivals Bath, and Andrew insists that the men from the West Country will not be taken lightly.
"Bristol have a big set of forwards, and I thought they deserved their win against Bath, so we will pay them every respect in our preparation," he said.
"Bath will feel as if they threw that game away, and that's what we can't afford to do, so we know that when our chances come we have to be ruthless and get the points on the board."
Tickets for the game are still available by calling 0871 226 60 60, logging on to www.newcastle-falcons.co.uk or coming to Kingston Park during office hours.
Newcastle Falcons team to face Bristol Rugby:
15 Matthew Burke
14 Tom May
13 Jamie Noon
12 Mark Mayerhofler
11 Anthony Elliott
10 Dave Walder
9 Hall Charlton
1 Micky Ward
2 Matt Thompson
3 Robbie Morris
4 Andy Perry
5 Stuart Grimes
6 Mike McCarthy
7 Colin Charvis (captain)
8 Phil Dowson
Replacements:
16 Tino Paoletti
17 Andy Long
18 Ian Peel
19 Owen Finegan
20 Geoff Parling
21 James Grindal
22 Jonny Wilkinson
Issued on behalf of Bristol Rugby
Richard Hill has kept faith with the Bristol team that kicked off the GUINNESS PREMIERSHIP season with a win against Bath Rugby naming an unchanged 22 for the trip to Newcastle.
The injury doubt from last weekend was centre Manu Contepomi who limped out of the Bath game in the first half but his knee injury turned out to be a lot less serious than expected as Bristol physio Paul Tompkins explained: "We thought he'd twisted it but we went through the video frame by frame and he actually received a glancing blow from Matt Salter's knee right on the knee equivalent of the funny bone. A complete fluke." "But he's absolutely fine now, he's been training this week and he's raring to go."
Apart from that, everyone else came through relatively unscathed, barring the usual bumps and bruises, and Richard Hill didn't see any need to make changes. "It's not going to happen many times in a season, to go in with an unchanged 22. And, while there's huge competition for places now, those 22 deserved to be in for another game after that terrific result last weekend."
"All the time you need to look at the selction and sometimes, even if you're winning, it doesn't mean that you keep that winning side. But I take the view that, even when you win, not very single player necessarily plays well. You might get a few below par." "My selection policy has always been to try and keep a settled side whilst giving the opportunity for others to come in when necessary and when they warrant it."
"My hopes for Newcastle are the same as they were before Bath. I don't think anything has changed. We're still going to fight and scrap for everything." "I must admit that I do like the way that Newcastle play. I think it will be a very exciting game to play in. They obviously don't just spend hours and hours practising set piece work, they like to play with width. On their day, I think their backline is amongst the best if not the best in the country."
"They are very dangerous attacking from first phase, they have some very talented three quarters and they're a real threat." Newcastle Falcons have mustered just one victory from their last eight Premiership encounters a 23-16 win at home to London Irish on April 30th. However, in that run, they have managed a draw plus four losing bonus points.
Last Sunday, Bristol became the first newly promoted team to win its opening fixture since Leeds did so in 2001-2 which was also against Bath! Bristol also return to the scene of their last Premiership victory away from home when they beat the Falcons 20-12 on December 1st 2002.
Bristol have won the last three matches they've played against Newcastle since the most recent Falcons' victory, 37-20 at Kingston Park in October 2001. Jason Strange goes into the match as one of only two kickers who achieved a 100% success rate last weekend, the other being Wasps' Mark van Gisbergen.
Bristol Rugby:
Bernardo Stortoni, Lee Robinson, Rob Higgitt, Manu Contepomi, Vaughan Going, Jason Strange, Shaun Perry, Dave Hilton, Mark Regan, Darren Crompton, Mariano Sambucetti, Gareth Llewellyn, Matt Salter (capt), Craig Short, Geraint Lewis
Replacements:
Alex Clarke, Saul Nelson, Roy Winters, Dan Ward-Smith, Greg Nicholls, Danny Gray, Mark Denney
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