Laycock hoping A team inspires.
Falcons Academy Manager Mark Laycock was pleased with the performance of his Newcastle Falcons A team as they bounced back from a narrow round one loss, with a comprehensive win against Worcester Cavaliers at Kingston Park on Monday night.
Fielding a side filled with quality, including 10 graduates or current members of the club’s academy a total of 11 tries were ran in on the way to a 75-22 score line with Laycock hopeful the result will generate a feel good factor within the club.
Speaking post match, he said: “Really pleased with the performance, it builds a lot of confidence in the whole squad, with a lot of senior guys in there as well.”
“It was probably a game of two halves really. The score line was quite close at half time and we spoke about cutting out some of the mistakes we felt were letting Worcester into the game. We spoke about not letting them cross our whitewash and doing the basics well, which they did really well and scored 45 unanswered points in the second half.”
Assessing the performances of his side on an evening where all 23 members of the squad were able to shine, Laycock was fulsome in his praise.
“I thought Craig Willis again had a good solid game, he kicked really well both out of hand and at goal and attacked the line well. Dan Temm and Simon Hammersley were both solid, Tom Penny was really physical and got us over the gain-line.”
Speaking further on Temm, who took man of the match honours with a typically energetic performance, Laycock added
“He seems to have found another level of confidence in how he plays and it was what we probably first saw in him when he first came onto the scene. He’s now found his feet in a different environment and he’ll hopefully now kick on a push his case for more first team stuff.”
While a good win sets the club up nicely for the next round of A team action, the Academy manager is hopeful it can also, as last year, serve to inspire the full club.
“It’s important that the A team do well. Although it’s a separate team, its one squad and that makes it important for the bigger picture. You want competition through the depth of the squad. A good win builds confidence, tomorrow at training all they boys will be talking about the good things that went on and it builds the whole squad.”
