2005/06 Review Part Two

By Mark H
July 31 2006

Here's part two of the review of last season. Just twelve more days before 2006/07 arrives, and it can't come quickly enough...

2006 started with a home win over Worcester, Matt Burke scoring a terrific individual try and Dave Walder scoring what would turn out to be his last five-pointed for the club whilst in the process of having his head removed from his shoulders and tripping up referee Ashley Rowden at the same time (you had to see it...).  The 21-15 win meant five wins and a draw since Peter Walton had taken charge of the forwards.  Coincidence?

 

A disappointing defeat at Wasps (21-6) where no-one performed in the rain ushered in the last rounds of European Challenge Cup matches.  With two wins needed for a guaranteed top two seeding, and a home path for what we hoped would be a glorious finale to the season, Borders came to Kingston Park and Steve Bates' local knowledge caused problems for a while, before the Scots were despatched and a quarter-final place was assured.  Most importantly of all, Micky Ward scored a rare try, his first for five years! 

 

The seeding would come down to the trip to Brive though, and with London Irish - the other challengers for the second seeding - having won their last pool match against Pau by half time, and Gloucester on the way to beating Bayonne, the four points was essential for Falcons.  Thankfully tries from James Hoyle and Geoff Parling (not, as was reported widely on the Sunday, Parling's lookalike Ward), and Matt Burke's trusty boot secured a 24-17 win and that home quarter (and potential semi) final.  24 hours later, the opponents were known, when Narbonne won at Bristol to eliminate them and Connacht, semi-finalists for the previous two years, would be coming to Kingston Park in the spring.  Narbonne had just cause to feel hard done by, as in being awarded just four points against Viadana in their abandoned pool one game, the missed 39 minutes meant that they could not have the opportunity for a bonus point - the bonus point that would have seen them into the quarter-finals.

 

Saracens were the next visitors to the north east, and a gloomy mid-morning prediction from a Sarrie friend proved to be true, as the Fez People were sent back to Watford on the end of a 21-16 defeat.  The run was now eight wins and a draw in the last ten games.  With London Irish beaten at the Madejski a fortnight later thanks to a superb display in the pack and the lineout, and Dave Walder's masterful boot ("I've said for many years that he is as good a tactical kicker as there is in this country, and he showed it yet again out there." - Rob Andrew), thoughts were starting to turn towards a possible Heineken Cup place through the league position.

 

Even when Dean Ryan brought his improving Gloucester team north and took the points 13-9 in a dreadful match, the thoughts of the top six did not dissipate, as Rob Andrew could point to players being rested in anticipation of a game just five days later (and this five day gap is going to occur a lot in 2006/07).  Friday Night Live 2 saw Friday Night Win 1, as Leicester were beaten 24-16 by seven Burke penalties and a Tom May drop goal.  Best of all, it didn't seem like a shock result, and to get six points off the team that eventually finished second at that point seemed like an excellent return.  In fact, if you look at the table, falcons did better against the top teams than the strugglers - 6 points off Sale and Leicester, 5 off London Irish and 4 from Wasps accounted for near enough half the points tally for the entire season.

 

As is always true with Falcons though, the wheels had to fall off eventually.  When the Premiership resumed in March, there was only one point coming north from the Rec as Bath snatched a late 23-20 win.  All in all, three points out of thirty were gained from the wild south west teams, one each from Bath, Bristol and Gloucester.  Patently not good enough.

 

Tuesday 21st March brought us Mathew Aurelien Damien Hazell-O'Mahoney, and five days later namesake number three (Saints' Mr Browne) left Kingston Park happier than namesake number one (Mr Burke) on the back of a five try 32-13 victory inspired by the genius of Carlos Spencer.  The new daddy spent the afternoon alternating between Radio Newcastle, where Messrs Williams and Smith were very depressed ("well at least it's not cold"), and Radio Northampton, where there was a sense of stunned disbelief at the score.

 

A mere five days passed before the biggest match of the season so far.  With those thoughts of Heineken Cup league qualification looking unlikely, the European Challenge Cup was the target.  It rained.  A lot.  Enough, in fact, to cause the closure of the North Stand due to access problems outside the ground.  The sparse crowd (not helped by the weather or Sky showing their first ever game at this stage of the competition) saw Toby Flood's virtuoso performance (18 of the 23 points) take Falcons comfortably past Connacht's reach and into the semi-finals.  With Gloucester and Worcester winning the Saturday games, Falcons had to wait until Sunday for London Irish's expected win over a relegation haunted Bayonne to confirm the semi-final that we'd all been expecting since December.

 

Whether it was the thought of the semi-finals or other reasons, Falcons switched off the following Sunday at Bristol, going down 23-7 in a dismal display. It confirmed Bristol's safety, and merely confirmed that Falcons would have to improve considerably for 2006/07.  Easter Sunday brought the reverse of the opening day fixtures, and a Premiership leading Sale side confident of a first win at Kingston Park.  Philippe Saint-Andre chose to play a less than full strength side, but it didn't look to affect them as they held a 21-13 half time lead; once again the home side had flattered to deceive in front of their own supporters.  However, two second half tries from Tom May and one from the elastic arms of Geoff Parling not only brought a 32-21 win for Falcons, but a first try scoring bonus point of the season in the league.  And so the Kingston Park bogey goes on...

 

Regardless of what had been happening in the league, the season now came down to one match - the ECC semi-final, the only remaining path to Heineken Cup qualification.  During the Gloucester-Worcester semi-final on the Saturday, ERC announced the curious decision to hold the final at the Twickenham Stoop at 12.15 on a Sunday.  Wise decision or not (and you can guess my opinion), Falcons would have to win on this particular Sunday for it to have any real meaning, and the TV-influenced 12.35 kick-off was bad enough.

 

A Matt Burke penalty early on was promising, on a cloudless afternoon, and we started to believe.  We didn't expect 27 unanswered points either side of the interval, as Irish scored four tries with pace, power, and assistance from both Falcons and the referee.  It was embarrassing, enough for Rob Andrew to remove both Dave Walder and Andy Long from the fray just 32 minutes into the game.  The lineout didn't improve dramatically, but the sheer presence of Jonny Wilkinson made us think that positive things could be possible.  Trouble was, it went from 15-3 at his introduction to 27-3 at the bottom of the abyss, and no-one came back from that distance, especially as by now Jonny had been whacked.  Irish had booked their place in the final.

 

And they kept thinking that, making changes to get through the remaining minutes without risking their more important players.  Finally, pride kicked in, and Mike McCarthy - criminally underused for most of the season - broke up the right wing and offloaded beautifully for Ben Woods to score in the corner.  Wilkinson converted from the touchline; at least there was some fight.  Within minutes, Tom May had added a second, this time with the hurried conversion sliding wide.  The volume level has risen considerably.  When Mathew Tait got on the end of a Wilkinson pass for a third try under the posts, the ground rocked.  27-22 down, Irish out on their feet, a black wave heading towards the North Stand searching for a levelling score.  They tried, by God they tried.  A rolling maul was set up from a five metre lineout, and with everyone hoping, Matt Thompson went to ground in close proximity to the try line.  After an interminable delay, the ball was ruled - correctly - as held up, and there was time for one more play.  From the scrum, with forward momentum started a move that saw the ball being shipped along the line only for it to slip out with Burke and May trying a quick exchange.  The miracle comeback was thwarted; Irish were in the final, Falcons were out, and the seventy minutes of utter dirge had ended the season - effectively - on 23rd April.

 

The repercussions were felt almost immediately.  On the Thursday following the semi-final, the rumours that had started getting louder the previous evening were confirmed, as the club announced that three players would be leaving with a year remaining on their contracts - Tino Paoletti, who had not impressed in the few games he featured; Owen Finegan, who was a shadow of his former self and had never looked like being up to Premiership pace; and most surprisingly of all, Dave Walder, after seven years at the club and looking to be the man carrying the can for the European exit.  None of the three players would feature in the last two games; it just seemed like a sad, shabby way to treat Walder in particular.

 

The first of the league games that remained saw a 35-27 reverse at Worcester, where despite scoring five tries, four missed conversions meant a defeat and only one bonus point.  That horrible Rowden man (or at least that what I think I call him) also gave a yellow card to Mathew Tait.

 

For the last game of the season, Leeds came to town, having shorn themselves of the players who would not accompany them to National One.  Rob Andrew decided to take the opportunity to field the Premiership's first all-English 22, which was to have devastating results - 35-0 up at half time, the eventual 54-19 victory saw eight tries, and Anthony Elliott proving to be a useful goalkicker when converting from the touchline.

 

Seventh place in the end was the same as a year earlier, but with no wildcard play-offs for a Heineken Cup spot, the season petered out and felt quite disappointing.  As I mentioned in part one of this review, the missed kicks proved costly - three points against Sale, one against Bristol, two at Leicester (and there's an argument for two at Worcester as well) - eight points which would have secured sixth place and that Heineken spot.  Hell, if you want to extend it, Jonny's missed conversion meant that it was a five and not three point gap going into the closing stages of the ECC semi-final, and extra time with a successful three pointer would - I repeat, would - have seen Falcons in the final with Irish out on their feet.  Add this to the missed opportunities in the Powergen at Llanelli and Leeds, and I could be writing a very different story.

 

Eventually, the chances will have go over.  Let's hope they do so when it matters in 2006/07.

 

The season end brought the release of further players, with Colin Charvis, Stuart Grimes and Grant Anderson all departing, and Mark Wilkinson reverting to a coaching role.  Elsewhere, Wasps beat Llanelli (what could have been...) in the Powergen Cup final; Bath were the last remaining English club in the Heineken Cup, where Munster beat Biarritz 23-19 in the final; Biarritz made up for it by winning the French championship on a baking hot Paris afternoon over Toulouse; Gloucester beat Irish in an epic ECC final after extra time; Sale became the second northern champions, having led for most of the season, by demolishing Leicester at Twickenham; France won the 6 Nations with England trailing in fourth; England won silver at the Commonwealth Games sevens, with Mathew Tait the player (and top try scorer) of the tournament; and Tait and Jamie Noon went on England's ill-fated tour to Australia.

 

It was not the worst of years, but it was not the best either.  Room for improvement.