NEWCASTLE FALCONS will head to Romania this week with their European Challenge Cup hopes hanging in the balance after a first-half capitulation resulted in a 40-29 defeat to Newport Gwent Dragons.

Falcons conceded a four-try bonus point within the opening 25 minutes as their much-changed line-up collapsed in the face of some rampant Newport attacking.

Dean Richards’ side recovered their composure in the second half, picking up a bonus point of their own as they ran in four tries, but the defeat leaves them five points adrift of the Dragons heading into the final round of fixtures.

Their inferior head-to-head record against the Welsh side means they cannot overhaul them, but a win against Bucharest Wolves on Saturday could yet see them make the quarter-finals as one of the three best placed runners-up.

“I’ve never known four converted tries to go over in a ten-minute period like that,” said Richards. “It was very disappointing in terms of losing our composure.

“That’s 28 points, and it was always going to be difficult in the second half as a result, but we’ll look closely at that ten minutes and why we fell off the cliff, and how we can stop that happening again should we have someone sin-binned.”

It was Richard Mayhew who found himself in the sin bin on Saturday, and the flanker’s departure coincided with Newcastle dropping out of the game completely.

Falcons had actually claimed the lead when Tom Catterick slotted an early penalty, but after Newport responded with a try from Tyler Morgan, the hosts conceded four tries in a whirlwind spell while they were down to 14 men.

The first was a penalty try, the second saw lock Andrew Coombs go over in the corner, the third involved Hallam Amos crashing through some weak tackles to score and the fourth came courtesy of a dollop of luck as a chip bounced favourably for Amos to feed skipper Rynard Landman, who crossed unopposed.

“I walked into the changing room and you can give it the hairdryer treatment, but it was anything but that,” said Richards. “I just went in and said, ‘Boys, we’re in a bit of a pickle aren’t we? How do we get out of it?’

“We went through what we were doing wrong, talked about doing it right and everyone getting their roles right and executing things to the best of their ability.

“We went out in the second half and played with a bit of composure, which is what we should have done in the first half.”

To their credit, Falcons won the second half 26-5, with Juan Pablo Socino scoring following a maul in the right corner, Chris Harris crossing after a successful grubber kick, Will Welch going over from close range and skipper Andy Saull completing the scoring.

Newcastle Falcons: Hammersley, Penny (Socino 41), Powell, Harris (Davies 67), Tait, Catterick (Clegg 62), Tipuna; Rogers (Fry 62), McGuigan (Hawkins 69), Brookes (Rogers 78), Robinson (Witty 69), Thompson, R Mayhew, Saull, York (Welch 60).