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| That'll do nicely. Henry Paul slots over the penalty in the last minute to keep the 100% start intact. |
| picture by Bruce Seabrook GPA |
| Newcastle Falcons 19 V 22 Gloucester |
| 15 September 2002, 6:22 pm |
| By Howard Lush |
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Gloucester will make the long journey home from Kingston Park with their 100% league record still intact but only thanks to an 86th minute Henry Paul penalty.
Nigel Melville made only two changes in the pack to the team that started against Sale last weekend at Kingsholm. Rob Fidler renewed his partnership with Mark Cornwell in the second row, while Patrice Collazo joined Captain, Phil Vickery and Olivier Azam upfront.
With players of the calibre of Ludovic Mercier and Jonny Wilkinson on show, there was always the possibility that this game could become a battle of the fly-halves and so it proved in the early exchanges with both players trading a couple of penalty kicks each to leave the score, mid way in the first half, 6 points apiece.
At this point, Gloucester's forward supremacy took control of the game and a score looked on the cards. However, only following the sin binning of lock, Hugh Vyvyan, was the pressure converted to points. Junior Paramore, at the base of the scrum, guided the ball over the try line as the seven men of the Falcons had no response to the full weight of the powerful Gloucester pack. Mercier converted and Gloucester led 13 points to 6. Now in the ascendancy, the Gloucester supporters who had made the journey, may have thought that this was to open the floodgates but a lack of continuity and a failure to build a platform meant that the Cherry and Whites could not extend their lead. Now back to 15 men, Newcastle closed the gap to a single point at half time through the trusted boot of Newcastle captain Jonny Wilkinson.
Half Time - Newcastle 12 v 13 Gloucester
The Newcastle skipper was involved in most of good play that his team put together. Alert to the fact that Gloucester were dominating up front, Wilkinson looked to play away from the pack and keep the ball alive in several phases of play but one or two unforced errors and a strong defensive line, most notably including the strong tackling of centre Robert Todd, meant that neither team were able to break away. Even when Patrice Collazo was sin-binned for what looked like an off the ball incident, neither team could dominate the play.
In the 55th minute, Ludovic Mercier was helped off the pitch with a shin injury and Nigel Melville was able to call the changes that his depth of squad allows. Henry Paul replaced Ludo at Fly-Half, Thinus Delport slotted in at Full-Back and sprint ace Marcel Garvey came onto the wing. Garvey immediately impressed with a couple of jinking runs but it was again the boot of the fly half, this time HP, that took Gloucester to a 19 - 12 lead.
In fact the score-line remained the same right up until the last minute of scheduled playing time when Epi Taione, who had started the game on the bench, broke through down the left hand side and beat Andy Gomarsall's desperate attempt to score under the posts. An easy conversion for England's number 10 took the scores level at 19 - 19 with only injury time to play.
Following the restart and attempts by both teams to snatch it at the death, it was the Gloucester forwards in particular that gave the platform to set up Henry Paul's first attempt to win it. A missed drop goal in the 83rd minute was wiped away from the memory bank as Paul, the man for the big occasion, stepped up in the 86th and final minute to slot home a penalty from 5 yards in on the Newcastle 22metre line.
This was a game that early last season might well have passed the Cherry and Whites by. Instead, Gloucester have travelled and won away from home and kept their unbeaten start to the season intact.
Gloucester Squad:
Paul, Delport, Fanolua, Todd (Simpson Daniel 70), Beim, Mercier (Garvey 55), Gomarsall, Collazo (Woodman 52), Azam (Fortey 63), Vickery (c), Fidler, Cornwell, Boer (Eustace 81), Forrester (Buxton 75), Paramore
Replacements not used: Stuart Smith
Newcastle Squad:
Botham, Shaw, Godman, May, Noon, Wilkinson, Charlton (Grindall 75), Peel (Isaacson 65), Brotherstone (Thompson 57), Ward (Hurter 45), Vyvyan, Grimes, Otuvaka (Taione 45), Arnold (Devonshire 57), Dowson.
Replacements not used: Hamilton
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