Another second half collapse

Prepare yourself for a shock – yesterday the Falcons competed well in an exciting first half at Franklin's Gardens, before Northampton ran away with the game in the second half. It's incredible how often that happens.

Following Leicester's win at Sale on Friday night, this game was a bottom-of-the-table clash as both teams looked to kick-start their Premiership seasons.

Tom May played against the Falcons for the first time having moved to Northampton in the summer, alongside Phil Dowson and Lee Dickson, while the England contingent of Ben Foden, Chris Ashton, Courtney Lawes and Dylan Hartley made their first Premiership appearances of the season.

For Newcastle, Jeremy Manning was at full-back with Luke Eves and Rikki Sheriffe on the wings, and Euan Murray played in the league for the first time in 2011/12 following the World Cup.

Northampton went ahead early on through a Ryan Lamb penalty but Jimmy Gopperth equalised. However, the Saints scored the first try when Chris Pilgrim had a box kick charged down deep in our 22, and the home team spread the ball left for May to score.

The former Falcon scored a similar try on 20 minutes, a two-on-one ending the only way it could have with the centre scoring easily, and Lamb converted the second score to put his side 15-3 up.

Gopperth reduced the deficit before Lawes took out Manning with a late hit in our half, drawing outrage from the away fans who cheered referee JP Doyle's yellow card. The home supporters were not happy with Manning staying down for treatment, or indeed getting up relatively quickly, and Jerry was booed for the rest of the game but still put in a great performance.

Gopperth kicked the penalty and added a drop-goal too, but with the clock on zero Northampton won a penalty at a scrum near our line, the referee seeming unable to see Soane Tonga'uiha standing up at almost every scrum. I guess Tonga isn't really that big.

As silence descended for Lamb's kick, quote of the day came from Andrew Lucky Shorts “I can smell dog food”, but Geordie chuckles obviously it didn't put Lamb off and the Saints went into the dressing room 18-12 up.

After half-time Northampton took over and Vasily Artemyev scored two tries, one coming from a long Falcons lineout that none of our players bothered to try to catch. Lamb converted both.

On the hour the Falcons won a penalty on the home 22 but inexplicably captain Ally Hogg decided to take the points, and Gopperth obliged but we were still 30-15 down.

For the moment, as barely a couple of minutes later Chris Ashton splashed over from close range. The winger finished off the scoring with a long run down the right for his team's sixth try – despite my predictions, he didn't drop the ball in his dive.

I suppose far better teams than us will get tonked at Franklin's Gardens this season, but almost a third of the season is now gone and things are getting hairy.

We are now five points behind Worcester following their losing bonus point on Friday night, and this coming Friday is the first part of what looks like the big one against the Warriors. This is another of many must-win matches, as a loss would put us in a pretty pickle.

The team need some big support this Friday. If you don't have your £10 ticket yet, what are you waiting for?