Falcons suffer a humbling (From The Northern Echo)

Falcons suffer a humbling

9:27am Monday 12th May 2008

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Worcester 51 Newcastle Falcons 10

MIKE Ruddock praised his Worcester side but had some sympathy for troubled Newcastle after a 51-10 victory at Sixways rounded off both sides Guinness Premiership seasons.

The Warriors go to Gloucester in a fortnight to face Bath in the European Challenge Cup final, while it is question time for the Falcons as they lick their wounds after a troubled season.

Worcester director of rugby Ruddock said: It was great for us, but what a tough week for Newcastle after they had to play three games.

We won the second-half 31- 0, which shows they were tired.

As much as we won the game and it was great to sign off with a victory, we keep it in perspective and we know it will be tougher in two weeks time against Bath.

Worcester notched up eight touchdowns and could have inflicted the heaviest defeat on Newcastle this season if more than two conversions went over or possible tries C ruled out for forward passes and mistakes C had been scored.

Newcastles acting director of rugby Steve Bates admitted it had been a tough week, especially after Wednesdays failed bid to beat Wasps.

Bates said: We had a really difficult week and there were a lot of young lads out there who have not got a lot of experience at this level and havent played much rugby at this intensity and that showed after halftime.

That is where our tiredness showed from this week. We have not had any time to prepare.

We played Wednesday night, didnt do anything Thursday, travelled yesterday and had a little runaround.

We got here but we are taking on a good Premiership team with half a side ourselves and no preparation.

Im not particularly surprised but I thought, firsthalf particularly, we did not help ourselves with discipline.

But, at the end, I think it was just the end of a couple of tough months for us.

Worcester scored three tries after half-time through Thinus Delport and Miles Benjamin (two), taking the score from 20- 10 to 37-10 and putting them out of sight.

Pat Sanderson, Aleki Lutui and Chris Horsman got touchdowns for the Warriors in the first half against one try from Newcastles Ollie Phillips.

The seventh and eighth touchdowns, by Rico Gear and Marcel Garvey, were just the icing on the Worcester cake.

Bates added: We were under a bit of pressure and we havent done badly to turn around at 20-10 but the three tries after half-time were the turning point.

ö Alex Tait, brother of the departing Mathew, has signed a new deal at Kingston Park.

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