Ponton praises ten-try Falcons
The game against Scottish opposition was helping raise funds for My Name’5 Doddie, with Newcastle building a 47-0 half-time lead and scoring a total of ten tries on the day.
“I was really pleased with how the lads went about that,” said Ponton, the head of academy who was taking charge of the Falcons’ team.
“When things are coming a little bit easily it can be tempting to go off-script and start doing your own thing, but I was happy with how the lads stuck to what we’d talked about doing in the first half.
“We were committed in the defence with two-man tackles and taking away their space, in attack we were pretty clinical and in the second half we challenged the players in different ways.
“We brought on a lot of the younger lads, which was really beneficial for them, and we played around a quarter of the game with 14 men and with two front-row players playing in the back row.
“We managed to win that second half 21-19 despite all those challenges, and credit to Southern Knights because they stuck at it for the full 80.
“It would have been easy for them to get their heads down, but they came back well and earned their rewards with three second-half tries.”
Vereimi Qorowale weighed in with four tries and Freddie Lockwood scored a hat-trick, with Ponton pleased by his troops’ efforts.
“A number of our first-year players got some good game time which was really good from my own point of view as head of academy, and they’ll get a lot from being in that environment,” he said.
“I thought it was also fantastic how the senior pros at the club really got behind the lads who were playing in this game, and helped them all week during the build-up.
“That says a lot about the culture among the squad that they are so willing to play their part even when they’re not involved in the game, and the lads massively benefited from that.
“As well as the rugby it was great to see so many people come out and support Doddie Weir’s foundation, and there were a lot of the tartan shirts in the crowd.
“That just hammers home how much Doddie meant to everyone here and how committed people are to helping his charity, and that was a really important element of the day.”
Newcastle Falcons’ next home game is on Sunday March 5 when London Irish are the Gallagher Premiership visitors.
[**Click here**][1] to buy tickets for the 3pm kick-off.
[1]: https://www.eticketing.co.uk/newcastle-falcons/EDP/Event/Index/1749
