Lions 35-13 Newcastle Falcons: battling Falcons suffer 10th straight defeat
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Newcastle fell to a 10th successive defeat at Emirates Airlien Park
European Challenge Cup: Lions v Newcastle Falcons |
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Lions: (14) 35 |
Tries: Botha, JP Smith, Tshituka 2, Louw Cons: Nohamba 5 |
Newcastle: (6) 13 |
Try: Lockwood Con: Connon Pens: Connon 2 |
Newcastle suffered a 10th straight defeat as they were comfortably beaten by South African side Lions in the European Challenge Cup.
The Premiership's bottom side avoided a thrashing that some predicted, but the hosts still ran in five tries.
Tries from PJ Botha, JP Smith, Emmanuel Tshituka (2) and Marius Louw made it two wins from two for Lions.
Freddie Lockwood scored a consolation try, while Brett Connon's penalty had Falcons in an early lead.
Faced with a Lions side that had won convincingly at Perpignan in their group opener last week, Newcastle appeared to be staring down the barrel as they only arrived in the Highveld on Tuesday, with limited time to acclimatise to the high altitude.
Lions made 14 changes from last week and in another bright start Newcastle, who lost their opening game to Montpellier last week, forced successive penalties for Connon to kick them ahead.
It did not last, and the Falcons' achilles heel, their line-out, cost them dearly once more, as Botha burst off the back of a wrestling maul to power over and put Lions ahead.
Smith went over from a similar line-out-maul situation before Connon kicked another penalty to keep Falcons within sight.
Newcastle had Josh Bainbridge yellow-carded for collective persistent infringements, and Philip van der Walt quickly followed him for making head contact as the visiting side struggled to cope.
Their resistance finally crumbled in the second half as Tshituka powered over, but Lockwood forced his way over from a tap penalty to give Newcastle a tiny glimmer of hope.
That was removed when Louw finished off the only effective attack by the Lions back-line to collect the bonus point.
Lions: Q. Horn; Kriel, Jonker, Louw, Maxwane; Nohamba, Van Den Berg; J.P. Smith, Botha, Ntlabakanye, Alberts, Landsberg, Tshituka, Venter, F. Horn.
Replacements: Visagie, Naude, R. Smith, Roets, Sirgel, Pretorius, Hendrikse, Lombard.
Newcastle: Obatoyinbo; Greenwood, Stevenson, Hutchison, Brown; Connon, Barton; Brocklebank, Maddison, Tampin, Cardall, McDonald, Van der Walt, Bainbridge (capt), Kelly.
Replacements: Van Vuuren, Dormer, McCallum, Scott, Lockwood, Douglas, Thomas, Wacokecoke.
Referee: Benoit Rousselet (France).
Sin-bin: Bainbridge (37), Van der Walt (40)