RugbyRebels

Newcastle Falcons team to play Saracens (Sunday, 3pm, Kingston Park Stadium)

15 Simon Hammersley

14 Vereniki Goneva

13 Chris Harris

12 Josh Matavesi

11 Adam Radwan

10 Toby Flood

9 Sonatane Takulua

1 Sami Mavinga

2 George McGuigan

3 Logovi'i Mulipola

4 Calum Green

5 Will Witty

6 Mark Wilson

7 Will Welch (captain)

8 Callum Chick

Replacements

16 Santiago Socino

17 Adam Brocklebank

18 Jack Payne

19 Tevita Cavubati

20 Gary Graham

21 Sam Stuart

22 Joel Hodgson

23 Alex Tait

Saracens

15 Alex Goode

14 David Strettle

13 Alex Lozowski

12 Brad Barritt (captain)

11 Sean Maitland

10 Owen Farrell

9 Ben Spencer

1 Mako Vunipola

2 Jamie George

3 Vincent Koch

4 Maro Itoje

5 Will Skelton

6 Mike Rhodes

7 Ben Earl

8 Jackson Wray

Replacements

16 Christopher Tolofua

17 Richard Barrington

18 Juan Figallo

19 Nick Isiekwe

20 Sione Vailanu

21 Richard Wigglesworth

22 Nick Tompkins

23 Alex Lewington

Both teams look strong, but Sarries a cut above. To think they are putting that 23 out and they still have Billy, Liam Williams, Kruis, Duncan Taylor, Schalk Burger and others to plug back in.

Benches tell a bit of a story too.

However, Falcons are at home where they are generally tough to beat. Radwan gets a start, along with Chick. No Williams which is a shame.

Earl starting at 7. He might get quite a bit of action this season. Hope Tompkins does too. At least he's on the bench.

fivepointer wrote: Earl starting at 7. He might get quite a bit of action this season.

The Goldington Rd Finishing School works it’s magic yet again.

Has Barritt ever missed a tackle?!? Sarries getting the rub of the green from the ref.

Yeah I'd be frustrated if I was newcastle as well, pretty unlucky.

Lozowski looking good. He’s made all the breaks for Saracens so far.

Game on!

Game off!! Lozowski almost butchered it, though.

Good to see that Newcastle are having as much trouble tackling Vailanu as Bedford did.

Only 2 teams got LBP this weekend.

Saracens did enough without getting out of 2nd gear, i thought. Falcons made far too many errors while Saracens did what they routinely do.
Tomkins yellow. For me if a player leads with his elbow up and it strikes an opponent in the head, its a straight red.

fivepointer wrote:Saracens did enough without getting out of 2nd gear, i thought. Falcons made far too many errors while Saracens did what they routinely do.
Tomkins yellow. For me if a player leads with his elbow up and it strikes an opponent in the head, its a straight red.

Somehow the ref and TMO said initial contact was to neck (for which you can read throat which is as bad as head for me) before riding up to head, hence yellow rather than red. Seemed to me to be a excuse to avoid showing said red.
I thought Newcastle looked good against what was a full strength Sarries team. I also thought both Witty and Chick were excellent.

Sarries were missing:

Billy V
Williams
Day
Clark
Burger
Bosch
Kruis
D.Taylor

At least five of those would be in a full strength team.

OK, thanks, we were unaware

The squad does look fairly ominous though doesn't it? And a lot of that you have to put down to the quality of the youth/development system, which is astounding really.

Lewington's a great singing too