THEY might be sitting at the foot of the Gallagher Premiership table, but Newcastle Falcons will continue their European adventure at Montpellier tomorrow afternoon looking to thrust themselves back into contention for a Champions Cup quarter-final place.

Falcons’ Pool Five campaign has stuttered after a whirlwind start, with back-to-back defeats to Edinburgh having dropped Dean Richards’ side to third position with two games to play.

Newcastle take on Montpellier in the south of France tomorrow before rounding off their pool campaign with a home game against Toulon, and two wins would give the Falcons a realistic chance of progressing to the knock-out phase.

“We’ve still got a chance of going through to the quarter-finals so it’s really important we go over there and give a good account of ourselves, and as Castres proved in the Top 14 final last season, Montpellier can be vulnerable,” said Falcons fly-half Toby Flood.

“It’s a great place to play, it’s a lovely town and I’m sure our supporters who are heading over there will have a brilliant weekend.

“But it’s an odd place at times, and if the fans don’t feel their team are performing they will start to turn on them, which is a really important factor for us to remember. If we’re ahead at half-time they’ll get booed off or it will be near silence, and it’s a great challenge for us to go over to France again and try to record another victory.”

Falcons celebrated their return to the Champions Cup after an absence of more than a decade with a win in Toulon, and also beat Montpellier at Kingston Park thanks to a remarkable winning try in the eighth minute of stoppage time.

Callum Chick crossed the try line to end a 38-phase passage of play, and having beaten Montpellier once this season, Flood sees no reason why a repeat should not be possible despite the French side’s galaxy of international stars.

“They’ve got one of the biggest budgets in France, if not the biggest, but as we showed by beating them at Kingston Park, if you do things well and get your game right, they’re beatable,” said Flood, who spent three seasons with Toulouse before re-joining Falcons in the summer of 2017.

“They’re big human beings, to put it mildly – they’re strong, and they’ve got a certain way of playing. Don’t get me wrong, they can light it up as well as using their power game, but it’s all about generating that go-forward through their big pack and their defensive aggression. They want to bottle you up and stop you from playing, and to make it a bit of a fight.

“It’s a tough one and we have to be clever about how we try to play around them, and what we do with our ball in play. Being able to bludgeon a team is not the sexiest rugby in the world, but it’s exciting to have the challenge of trying to combat that with our own style.”

Flood returns to the Falcons fold this weekend after he was forced to sit out the home defeat to Harlequins because of a head knock.

“It was a bit of an odd one because I actually felt fine at end of the Bristol game, and it wasn’t until the back end of last week that I began to feel unwell and a little bit unsteady,” he said. “That’s behind me now though, the medical staff have been great as always and all the necessary tests and protocols have been passed without any problem for this weekend.”

Falcons have made six changes for tomorrow’s game, with Flood returning as captain. He will be partnered in the half-backs by Sonatane Takulua, with Adam Brocklebank coming in at loose-head prop. Trevor Davison shifts to tight-head in place of the injured Logovi’i Mulipola, while Glen Young returns at lock in front of a back row which features John Hardie and Ryan Burrows.