Falcons ready for Monday’s home Shield final

Friday 10 May 2019 Written by: Adam


There is free entry and free parking for the 8pm Kingston Park kick-off, Laycock’s men booking their place following a 54-12 thumping of Exeter Braves in last week’s semi-final.

“The boys are all buzzing about being in the final, and especially with it being at home,” he said.

“They’re professional sportsmen, they all want to win a competition and we’ll put our best foot forward to hopefully repeat the performance level we showed in the semi-final.”

Winning the Northern Conference with some free-scoring performances, Laycock said: “Our last four semi-finals at this level had all been away from home down at Exeter, Saracens and Gloucester, and it does make a huge difference having home advantage this year.

“We knew top seeding would probably come down to tries scored, so we’ve always had that in our minds during the group stage that we had to get a big number of tries on the board.

“Everything came together as we’d hoped it would in the semi-final, the boys exerted a huge amount of energy and emotion, and you could see that from the performance.”

Expecting a stern test from a Saracens side who enjoyed an emphatic semi-final victory over Northampton, he added: “From the analysis we’ve done it looks like Saracens’ A-Team plays very much the same way as their first team, which as we all know has been very successful for them.

“Monday night footy can be a little bit more free-flowing along with that structure, and it should be a decent game for anyone who wants to come along and watch.”