Newcastle vs Quins - Sunday

[Puja]

Newcastle Falcons team v Harlequins (Sunday, 3pm, Kingston Park Stadium, live on BT Sport 1)

15 Tom Penny, 14 Adam Radwan, 13 Ben Stevenson, 12 Pete Lucock, 11 Iwan Stephens, 10 Brett Connon, 9 Louis Schreuder; 1 Logovi’i Mulipola, 2 George McGuigan, 3 Trevor Davison, 4 Greg Peterson, 5 Sean Robinson, 6 Philip van der Walt, 7 Will Welch (captain), 8 Carl Fearns.

Replacements: 16 Jamie Blamire, 17 Kyle Cooper, 18 Mark Tampin, 19 Marco Fuser, 20 Connor Collett, 21 Cameron Nordli-Kelemeti, 22 Will Haydon-Wood, 23 George Wacokecoke.

Harlequins: 15 Tyrone Green, 14 Louis Lynagh, 13 Joe Marchant, 12 Andre Esterhuizen, 11 Cadan Murley, 10 Tommy Allan, 9 Danny Care; 1 Santiago Garcia Botta, 2 Jack Walker, 3 Simon Kerrod, 4 Matt Symons, 5 Dino Lamb, 6 Tom Lawday, 7 Jack Kenningham, 8 Alex Dombrandt (captain).

Replacements: 16 Sam Riley, 17 Joe Marler, 18 Craig Trenier, 19 Hugh Tizard, 20 Archie White, 21 Scott Steele, 22 Huw Jones, 23 Luke Northmore.

[fivepointer]

Ah 2 of my ones to watch are on the bench. Hopefully Haydon-Wood and Riley will get a good run out.

No Mike Brown which is a shame.

[Puja]

Is Brown still banned from the end of last season?

Blamire's not done enough to beat McGuigan to the starting shirt yet, apparently.

Puja

[Scrumhead]

McGuigan had an outstanding season last time out and is a leader in their squad. Not at all surprised to see him start.

[Peej]

He's quite an under-rated player, I think

[Mellsblue]

Radwan!!!!!

[Mikey Brown]

Quins very lucky to be ahead at half time. Enjoyable game though.

[Scrumhead]

Radwan!!!!!

Yep. Looks electric. I think he’ll have a very good season.

[Mikey Brown]

Lol. Dombrandt. Sure Cockerill and Proudfoot loved that.

[Mikey Brown]

Stevenson looks as quick as Radwan? I wondered how they'd ever replace Sinoti Sinoti and they seem to have come up with two of them.

[Puja]

Radwan!!!!!

Yep. Looks electric. I think he’ll have a very good season.

Really looks to have worked hard on getting himself involved - used to be that he just hung around on the wing and waited for the game to come to him, but he looked really dangerous there. Next work-on is to improve his ball presentation - fell the wrong side in the tackle quite a few times.

Puja

[fivepointer]

Radwan and Stephens are going to cause a lot of defences headaches if they can get plenty of ball.

Allan had a good debut for Quins but for me Kenningham really stood out.

[Puja]

Radwan and Stephens are going to cause a lot of defences headaches if they can get plenty of ball.

Allan had a good debut for Quins but for me Kenningham really stood out.

Indeed - picked straight back up from where he left off last season. I wouldn't be sad to see him in the EPS - great tackler, hard worker, excellent lineout option - bit raw in places, but a definite talent.

Puja

[Mellsblue]

Radwan and Stephens are going to cause a lot of defences headaches if they can get plenty of ball.

Allan had a good debut for Quins but for me Kenningham really stood out.

Penny looked sharp, too. It could be a very dangerous back three.

[Scrumhead]

Radwan and Stephens are going to cause a lot of defences headaches if they can get plenty of ball.

Allan had a good debut for Quins but for me Kenningham really stood out.

Agreed on all of the above. I’m not ashamed to say I’d never heard of Iwan Stephens today, but safe to say I have now.

If Falcons carry on playing like that, they’ll give anyone a game and will take a good few scalps along the way.

[Digby]

Some very poor form here on Radwan, the done thing is to slight him for carrying the ball in one hand as with Monye.

[Scrumhead]

Radwan and Stephens are going to cause a lot of defences headaches if they can get plenty of ball.

Allan had a good debut for Quins but for me Kenningham really stood out.

Indeed - picked straight back up from where he left off last season. I wouldn't be sad to see him in the EPS - great tackler, hard worker, excellent lineout option - bit raw in places, but a definite talent.

Puja

Kenningham is outstanding IMO. Alongside your list of his attributes, I’d also add a few more.

He’s a deceptively good carrier who has nice footwork and punches well above his weight. He also runs good support lines (his try against Leinster in preseason being a prime example) which is really a by-product of him having that invaluable quality of being in the right place at the right time more often than not.

I’d also say that for a very inexperienced player, his decision-making at the breakdown is very good. He was harshly pinged for one turnover attempt today, but generally he competes hard and knows when to go for it and when to hold back.

I can go along with him being ‘a bit raw’, but I think that’s just lack of experience rather than any glaring weaknesses in his game. He has loads of natural ability and seems to have a good instinctive feel for the game which is a lot harder to teach if it’s not there.

If he keeps this up, I wouldn’t bet against him challenging for the RWC squad. I rate him that highly.

[Beasties]

Kenningham is just relentless, he's absolutely everywhere. He's already a talent. I'm starting to think he's gonna be at the level of Jack Willis shortly if he's not careful, I rate him that highly.

Radwan looks a nightmare to tackle when you see him running head on, his knees seem to stick out sideways which makes it even more difficult to work out which way he's stepping. The intake of breath from the crowd whenever he got the ball was Wadesque.

Newcastle have the handy knack of losing quality players and finding others just as good that no one's heard of.

[Mikey Brown]

Let’s see how he responds after having a bad day opposite Curry, Underhill or a top European backrow. It has to happen eventually.

On the whole though I absolutely agree. There’s a lot of Lewis Moody as everyone has said, but at the same time real precision in so much of what he does. All that and Dan Lydiate’s approach to tackling. I can’t wait to see how he develops.

[Puja]

Let’s see how he responds after having a bad day opposite Curry, Underhill or a top European backrow. It has to happen eventually.

On the whole though I absolutely agree. There’s a lot of Lewis Moody as everyone has said, but at the same time real precision in so much of what he does. All that and Dan Lydiate’s approach to tackling. I can’t wait to see how he develops.

Indeed. He's well worth getting excited over, but I don't think he's even had 10 starts for Quins yet. He's got a lot of proving ahead of him and, while I do hope he's in the EPS, that's mostly so he can test himself against the best and experience where he needs to get to, rather than because I think he's ready for full caps.

Puja

[Mikey Brown]

Also a mention for poor Garcia Botta in the moment he was left with Radwan running at him and no other defender within 10 metres. I wish they’d got an angle that caught his facial expression.

[Mikey Brown]

Let’s see how he responds after having a bad day opposite Curry, Underhill or a top European backrow. It has to happen eventually.

On the whole though I absolutely agree. There’s a lot of Lewis Moody as everyone has said, but at the same time real precision in so much of what he does. All that and Dan Lydiate’s approach to tackling. I can’t wait to see how he develops.

Indeed. He's well worth getting excited over, but I don't think he's even had 10 starts for Quins yet. He's got a lot of proving ahead of him and, while I do hope he's in the EPS, that's mostly so he can test himself against the best and experience where he needs to get to, rather than because I think he's ready for full caps.

Puja

Yep. There’s an awful lot of competition but there’s no arguing with his recent form. Proving his quality and a point of difference against all the other contenders is going to be a big ask. I really haven’t got a clue where Ludlum, Ludlow, Wilson, B. Curry, J. Willis sit in Eddie’s thoughts at the moment though.

It will be interesting to see what happens if Will Evans is able to get back to his form of last season.

[Scrumhead]

I’m also in agreement. My comment re. being in the RWC mix was on the assumption that he carries on as he has so far over the next two years. Not immediately, although I’d be more than happy to see him get a run out against Tonga.

As for the pecking order, Mikey’s right … it’s really hard to gauge where players rank in Eddie’s mind after Tom Curry and Underhill. But for injury, I expect Willis would have been the third, pushing hard to start followed by maybe Ludlam, Earl and potentially Ludlow (based mostly upon him captaining the side this summer). Kenningham, Hill, Martin, Reid and Ben Curry are all in the same boat really i.e. on the radar but not yet firmly in the mix.

Re. what happens when Evans returns, I suspect Kenningham shifts across to 6. I think of him in the fine tradition of 6.5s like his dad Chris Robshaw. Chisholm’s injured a lot and while Lawday is fine and does a decent job, he isn’t good enough to keep a better player out of the side.