Falcons boss sends an invitation to Simpson-Daniel
Gloucester 29 Newcastle Falcons 20
JAMES Simpson-Daniel has been
handed an open invitation to
Kingston Park by Newcastle director
of rugby John Fletcher.
The Gloucester winger scored
one try and was involved in two
others as the Guinness Premiership
leaders clawed their way to
a 28-20 victory they made far
harder than it needed to be.
It was a typical influential performance
from the 25-year-old
Teessider, but his club form has
never manifested itself on the international
stage.
Having taken five years to tot
up ten caps - his last on the illfated
tour to South Africa last
year - Simpson-Daniel appears to
have been forgotten by England.
He was the best player on the
pitch and how he isn't in the national
fold I don't know,'' Fletcher
said.
He gave Gloucester a huge
amount of go-forward and if he
ever wants to come up to the
North East, tell him to give me a
call.''
But Simpson-Daniel's impact
left Fletcher ruing a missed opportunity
at Kingsholm.
Trailing 9-0 to three Willie
Walker penalties and struggling
to break Gloucester's hold in the
first half, the Falcons stunned
the home side with a barrage of
points that put them 20-9 ahead
with 25 minutes to play.
They scored two tries in the
two minutes before half-time
through Ollie Phillips and Tom
May, who converted both and
added a penalty and a drop-goal
early in the second period.
But Gloucester regrouped and
struck back with Simpson-Daniel
and replacements James Bailey
and Akapusi Qera touching
down, and Walker slotting two
conversions that denied the Falcons
even a bonus point.
Everything we did was first
class, so the defeat is hard to take,
but we've got to use it as fuel to
move forward,'' Fletcher said.
Gloucester head coach Dean
Ryan admitted his side had to
work hard for the win that
moves them five points
clear at the top of the table.
We had to be patient but
we got there in the end,''
he said. It was a competitive
game and
we probably
made it more difficult
than it
needed to be.
We didn't
make them work
for their 14 points
before half-time
and that increased
the hurdles we had
to get over.
We could easily
have lost through
not having done a
huge amount
wrong.''
Gloucester, despite
all their possession
during
the first half, almost
paid the
price for allowing
their concentration
to slip.
Newcastle an
early spell of pressure
when they
swung the ball
around off missed touchfinders
and May landed a penalty, but
then their momentum
foundered.
From there Gloucester began
to build. Jack Adams cleared up
a loose pass out of the scrum
from Gareth Cooper and made 30
metres before offloading to Walker,
who promptly slotted his first
penalty when the Falcons killed
the ball at the breakdown.
Luke Narraway, dropped by
England, went close chasing
Ryan Lamb's grubber behind the
flat defence, then Will James
powered through tackles leading
to a second penalty for Walker.
Having tidied up their line-out
troubles, Gloucester established
a platform to go again and, as
they surged towards the posts
through Adams and Andy
Hazell, Falcons fly-half Steve
Jones could not resist the temptation
to intercept and was yellow-
carded for a blatant offside.
The leaders continued to
hound their visitors with a series
of thudding breaks taking them
closer to the line, but could only
manage a third penalty for Walker
when Newcastle were caught
offside again.
Clearly in the ascendancy, it all
went wrong when Gloucester
were turned over inside the Falcons
half. Walker got down 15 metres
shy of the posts to cover
May's long clearance with Lamb
in support, but Ollie Phillips
plucked the ball away from the
pair and trundled to the posts,
leaving May a simple conversion.
Another turnover from a
promising attack saw the Falcons
work their way to within 10
metres of Gloucester's posts and
soft hands from All Black prop
Carl Hayman found May cutting
a sweet angle to the tryline.
The full-back added the conversion
on the stroke of halftime
and a penalty and dropgoal
early in the second half,
while Walker hit a post with
his fourth attempt.
Gloucester tightened
up their
game and
started to regain
control
on the hour
mark.
Q u i c k
hands saw
A d a m s
draw the defence
and Simpson-
Daniel skipped over for
the first try.
The winger was involved
in the second 12
minutes later, with the
Falcons unable to hold
the home side back as
Anthony Allen and Hazell
sent replacement full back
Bailey over.
They sealed the win when
Narraway charged down May's
drop-goal attempt on halfway
and popped the ball up from the
floor for another replacement,
flanker Qera, to run in.
Having missed his previous
two attempts, Walker's conversion
denied the Falcons a bonus
point.
9:22am Monday 25th February 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
