No Tantrums as Officials Deny Sarries at the Death

Paul Gustard
By Tim (Ex-Girly Back)
March 10 2007

I always enjoy my sojourns north to Kingston Park, partly because I like the Falcons as a club (it’s a tight compact ground with good facilities), but mainly due to the excellent hospitality given me by Doug Hart and his family.

With the final play of the game producing a Rod Penney try under the posts for the conversion to win it by 1 point I was really enjoying myself. I’d had a good week. I heard the Sarries/Sale score on the way down from Uhuru Peak on Kilimanjaro (many thanks to those of you that sponsored me/Barnardo’s – I did it), so was climatically prepared for the usual full force North Sea wind normally blowing at KP, and now with the final play Sarries has snatched it. Euphoria! Or was it?

I was not however enjoying myself at the beginning of the game. Glenda kicked off, Falcons secured, the scrummy put up a high one, the Chief slipped, the ball bounced, Falcons piled through, and Parling raced for the line. Try - and not a minute gone. From the resultant conversion Crichton hit the cross bar and it bobbled over = 7-0.

I could tell then this was going to be one of those nights. Falcons fans around me were dancing with delight. For the next 37 minutes the ball only came out of the Newcastle half for the excellent Scabs and Ratty to run it back. Sarries dominated possession, aided and abetted by Mr Debney who continued his trend from the Sarries/Gloucester home game, where he originally invented the offence of ‘wearing a black shirt’. Falcons were wearing black and the crowd was getting very angry with some of his obscure decisions. Vyv and Seymour were getting away with murder at the break-down.

After 15 minutes Sarries got their breakthrough. Scabs counter-attacked, set a ruck, and the ball was swung out wide quickly, to our star wing men Ches and Gustard, who exchanged passes and local boy Gustard touched down in the corner. Glenda missed the conversion = 7-5.

It was at this point I relayed to the Falcons supporters around me my lack of faith in Mr Debney, and my prediction that although he’d give most of the decisions to Sarries, when it came to the final play, he would save them. How prophetic ! They didn’t believe me, but it earned several pints in the bar afterwards.

Glenda continued to collect 3 penalties, and with half-time approaching it was 7-14.
At the end of the first half Sarries had another aberration. Census, for either high or spear tackle, was rightly yellowed. Falcons kicked for the corner, took their line-out, and on the second phase Crichton slipped through near the posts. Conversion counted, so it was 14-14 at half time. Sarries defence looked disorganised, particularly as the score came from second phase.

The second half was the dullest half game I’ve seen in a while (apart from the final 2 minutes). Falcons started getting a nudge on in the scrum, and got two penalties which Crichton converted = 20-14.

Then came Mr Debney’s big moment. With Falcons mauling and going through countless phases to kill the clock, they booted the ball out with 8 seconds left. Thomas ran for the ball, but because it was near the dug-out there were several balls. He glanced at the clock. With 2 seconds left he threw a long one in way over the heads of the Falcons backs who had moved up to block the quick-one. It fell kindly for Sarries, at last some slick hands with passes sticking, fixed defenders and Penney streaked through a gap, rounded the pedestrian Shaw to fly under the posts.

Remarkable = 20-19, with a GJ conversion to come, and time ended. Mr Debney however has a penchant for final second line-out technicalities, and just as for the Gloucester game he found one here. Total confusion. But his decision was to retreat to the Sarries 10m line and take the line-out properly. Sarries admirably didn’t argue, just got on with it, took the line-out and after two phases characteristically were penalised for not releasing at the ruck. Game over = 20-14.

What went on in that final play? I spoke to a non-commenting HRHRH afterwards, Alan Dickens was sanguine and still confused. I finally got the referee’s story from Tom May. Apparently Thomas hadn’t recovered the correct ball, so the line-out needed to form properly. The dilemma for Thomas was, if he’d waited any longer Debney was 20m away with most of the forwards, and it would never have formed in time. Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. Newcastle fans thought it was the biggest ’get out of jail’ card they’d even seen.

In truth the game was fairly ugly, punctuated by Mr Debney and his strange decisions, but Sarries should have won by half-time. The fact that there was some minor technical infringement presided over by the obtuse Mr Debney in the dying seconds was irrelevant. Sarries lost because they blew it in the first half when they dominated the game, and let in two soft tries went the defence went to sleep. The set piece was also ragged. Bad end to a good week. Now off to Twickers on Sunday to probably see ‘La Mere des toutes Stuffings’.

If you missed the opportunity to sponsor me before for my Kilimanjaro trek, I did it and you still can donate to Barnardo’s at: http://www.justgiving.com/tim-wood. Thanks again to those Sarries supporters that already have.

Scorers: Newcastle Falcons: Tries: Parling (2min), Crichton (40+2). Conversions: Crichton 2. Penalty goals: Crichton 2 (52, 72). Saracens: Try: Gustard (14). Penalty goals: Jackson 3 (10, 24, 38).

Scoring sequence (Newcastle first): 7-0, 7-3, 7-8, 7-11, 7-14, 14-14 (half-time), 17-14, 20-14.

Newcastle Falcons: J Shaw; T May, J Noon, M Mayerhofler, J Rudd; L Crichton, L Dickson; J McDonnell, M Thompson (rep: A Long, 69), M Ward (rep: J Golding, 64), M Sorensen, J Oakes (rep: A Buist, 67), G Parling, B Woods, R Winter (rep: B Wilson, 22).

Saracens: D Scarbrough; T Vaikona (rep: T Castaignãde, 41) R Penney, K Sorrell, K Ratuvou; G Jackson, A Dickens (rep: M Rauluni, 74); N Lloyd, M Cairns (rep: S Byrne, 59), J Visagie (rep: C Johnston, 10; sin-bin, 40-49), T Ryder (rep: S Raiwalui, 41), K Chesney, H Vyvyan, D Seymour, P Gustard.

Referee: R Debney.

Attendance: 6,368.