JOHN WELLS has warned his Newcastle Falcons players they will be facing Harlequins’ “rock stars” tomorrow, but is confident the London club’s high-risk style will enable his own team to hit the high notes.

Falcons travel to the Stoop looking to extend the four-point gap that currently separates them from London Irish at the foot of the table, but Dean Richards’ side are only too aware that their opponents will be a markedly different proposition to the side they beat 26-19 at Kingston Park at the end of January.

Back then Harlequins were without a number of their leading internationals, but the likes of Chris Robshaw, Mike Brown and Danny Care are all back in the fold this afternoon.

That will present Falcons with a new set of problems, but while Harlequins will look to attack from the outset, Wells is hoping an open, unstructured game works to his own side’s advantage.

“They have got all their rock stars back now, and there is no doubt they are a different side when those guys play,” said the Newcastle head coach. “We have shown we can compete with a Quins team which came up to Kingston Park missing a little bit of sparkle, but we have got to now show we can go down there and compete with a team which is putting a lot of emphasis on these international guys and their abilities.

“They are probably quite an individual side in the sense that they do rely on these guys to make things happen for them. Most teams do that, and we have got to do whatever we can to close them down when they have the ball.

“They play a unique brand of football which, when it works, is fantastic. But when it is closed down and stopped, teams can score, because offloads go to the floor and turnovers happen. There are therefore opportunities out there to use Harlequins’ style of play to our advantage.”

Wells admits Falcons had hoped to be much better placed with four games remaining, but insists there is no sense of panic despite London Irish having closed the gap with a surprise recent win over Gloucester.

“We didn’t plan for this at the beginning of the season,” he said. “We wanted to be giving people problems at the other end of the league, but we are where we are and we have to deal with it.

“We are playing some good stuff at times, but so are other teams. In terms of our own guys they are keeping themselves away from the doom and gloom scenarios because they can recognise that for vast tracts of the game they are doing good things.”

Falcons have made two changes to their starting line-up for tomorrow's game, with Sinoti Sinoti coming in for his third league start of the season, a switch that means Alex Tait reverting to full-back. The other alteration comes in the pack, where Ally Hogg is preferred to Sean Robinson.

Newcastle Falcons: Tait, Watson, Harris, Powell, Sinoti, Delany, Young; Vickers, McGuigan, Vea, M Wilson, Green, Latu, Welch, Hogg.

Replacements: Lawson, Rogers, Hatakeyama, Robinson, Hammersley, Takulua, Willis, Agulla.