Newcastle Falcons have made six changes to their side for Friday's Amlin Challenge Cup trip to French side Albi (kick-off 8pm local time, 7pm UK time).

The Falcons are aiming to put one foot in the quarter-finals by building on their position at the top of Pool 5, where they sit three points clear of Montauban going into the penultimate round of group matches.

Having emphatically defeated Albi 45-3 when the two teams met at Kingston Park back in October, Newcastle will be looking to build on that seven-try victory as they make the trip to Stade Municipal in South-West France.

Director of rugby Steve Bates has made six changes from the team which recorded a historic first ever win at London Wasps’ Adams Park ground a fortnight ago, having seen last Sunday’s home date with Gloucester postponed due to the snow.

Matt Thompson makes a first start for the club at tight head prop having switched over from hooker in a string of Development Team matches this season, as club captain Carl Hayman lies in wait on the bench.

A rib injury to Jon Golding sees Laurence Ovens called up to the loose head side, with Ovens keen to repeat his try-scoring exploits from the home tie against Albi. The only other change to the pack comes in the second row, where Mark Sorenson comes in for James Hudson.

In the backs there are three changes, as a fit-again Micky Young resumes scrum half duties after missing the Wasps trip with a calf problem.

A new wing partnership sees Yorkshire pair Danny Williams and Tom Biggs starting out wide as Charlie Amesbury misses out with a rib injury, with Gcobani Bobo shifted to the centres as Rob Vickerman continues his recovery on the bench from a foot injury.

Having seen his side claim a historic first ever win at Adams Park last time out, director of rugby Steve Bates said: “That was a big day for us and, I think, underlines the competitiveness of this team.

“We were very much looking forward to hosting Gloucester on the back of that momentum, so it was naturally very disappointing that the weather intervened and forced the postponement of our match last Sunday.

“On the flip side of that it has meant that we go over to Albi with fresh legs now, and I suppose you could say every cloud has a silver lining. We’ve got in a reasonable amount of training, we’re in great shape and the lads are absolutely raring to get some rugby.”

With the Falcons knowing that two wins from their remaining matches against Albi and Petrarca Padova would put them safely through to the quarter-finals, Bates added: “This is a very important game for us to win, and the focus has been very much on that during the week.

“From the videos of Albi’s game last weekend at home to Brive it looks like the weather and the pitch may not be necessarily conducive to the way we want to play, but hopefully we have learned a few lessons from the recent Leeds game about coping in those sorts of conditions.

“Albi have a very big pack but they’re not particularly mobile, so I think we can expect a similar approach from the way that Leeds played.

“We’re certainly not taking them lightly despite the nature of the result when we beat them at Kingston Park, because playing a French team over in France is always a very different proposition.

“The main thing for us is just to focus on ourselves, continue the momentum we generated down at Wasps and aim for the same sort of dominance as we look to develop our game.”

Newcastle Falcons team to face Albi:

15 Alex Tait
14 Danny Williams
13 Gcobani Bobo
12 Tane Tu’ipulotu
11 Tom Biggs
10 Jimmy Gopperth (captain)
9 Micky Young

1 Laurence Ovens
2 Rob Vickers
3 Matt Thompson
4 Tim Swinson
5 Mark Sorenson
6 Josh Afu
7 Brent Wilson
8 Filipo Levi

Replacements:

16 Alex Walker
17 Carl Hayman
18 Micky Ward
19 James Hudson
20 Adam Balding
21 Chris Pilgrim
22 Rob Miller
23 Rob Vickerman