De Chaves calls on Falcons to use home advantage

Friday 28 October 2022 Written by: Adam


Bath Rugby are the visitors in a 3pm kick-off, with De Chaves saying: “It’s great that it’s the 250th Premiership game here and is a nice little milestone, and hopefully we can have a game fit for the occasion.

“I’ve been to Kingston Park as a home player and an away player, and I can tell you for certain that teams don’t like coming here.

“It’s miles for them to travel, it’s often freezing cold, the fans make a lot of noise and the Falcons have always been a gritty team who love to defend their own patch.

“No matter what the score is you know it’s going to be a physical 80 minutes, and that you’ll be thankful when it’s all over.”

Up against a Bath team who had to wait until the last round of matches to find their first win of the season, De Chaves and his squad are not taking lightly the challenge offered by their West Country visitors.

“Bath are always tough opponents and they’ve got a lot of good players,” said the lock-forward, who has also played for Mont de Marsan, Leicester Tigers, London Irish and Austin Gilgronis.

“We can’t be going into this game taking them lightly, especially considering they’ve had their first win now – and I know we won’t be.

“To some degree it doesn’t matter what Bath bring because we’re so focused on ourselves, but yeah, they’re a good team with plenty of ability, so we’ll give them the respect they deserve.

“The big focus is on us and what we can do, and with having two free weekends we can’t say there’s been a lack of preparation time.

“We’ve spoken about a few things this week and we’ll focus on the same things next week, then it’s putting those into action when we get out onto the field.”

Having a bye last weekend and another spare weekend due to the cancellation of their trip to Wasps, De Chaves added: “I’m not 21 years old any more, so having a couple of free weekends is probably quite welcome for some of the guys just to iron out some niggles.

“Especially with having the midweek cup games it’s been a hectic start to the season, and the hope is that the guys will show that freshness coming into the Bath game.

“You’ve got to strike that balance between the guys being fresh and being match sharp, and I think we’ve done a decent job of that.”

[**Click here**][1] to buy tickets for Newcastle Falcons v Bath Rugby on Saturday November 5 (kick-off 3pm).

[1]: https://www.eticketing.co.uk/newcastle-falcons/EDP/Event/Index/1742?position=5