Newcastle Falcons are the first team in the European Challenge Cup semi-finals after they rose to the challenge of Connacht at Kingston Park.

At a rain-soaked stadium the home side controlled the match from start to finish, and forced their visitors to make a monumental 134 tackles over the 80 mintutes.


“It was a difficult match, and all credit to Connacht. But we played some intelligent rugby, .We played with intensity and passion and I felt we deserved to win,” said Newcastle coach Rob Andrew.


Newcastle stormed into a 13-0 lead largely thanks to the ingenuity of outside half Toby Flood. His try after 16 minutes was a work of genius.


Newcastle knocked on which gave Connacht a scrum 30 meters from the Newcastle line, the Connacht scrum worked well, but the ball was turned over and Flood collected loose ball.


The industrious No.10, who has learnt his trade from the likes of Andrew and World Cup winning Jonny Wilkinson chased down his own clearing kick, and dived on the awkwardly bouncing ball ahead of the Connacht defence in the right hand corner.


He added a conversion and two penalties to score all of Newcastle’s 13 first half points. Paul Warwick got the visitors on the scoreboard with a 35 metre penalty in the final minutes of the first period.


The second period was a 10-0 shutout for the home side, and as conditions worsened they controlled both ball and territory.


Connacht coach Micheal Bradley admitted his side were well beaten on the day.


“We are very disappointed. We failed to attack them consistently, but that is rugby and sometimes it goes like that on the day.


“Newcastle have certainly upped their performances over the last couple of weeks, and they deserved their win tonight.”