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| Bates Hails New Boys |
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| Rugby league convert Danny Williams fronts up in defence |
| 8 August 2008, 11:33 pm |
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| Newcastle Falcons director of rugby, Steve Bates, hailed the impact of his new signings despite suffering a 25-15 loss at the hands of Western Force on Friday at Kingston Park. |
With the Falcons having led 8-5 at the break, their Australian Super 14 opponents scored two tries early in the second half to wrap the game up, despite the Falcons' powerful scrum forcing a penalty try.
“We showed a good level of fitness for this time of year, and with only a week of rugby training under our belts I thought there were some positive signs out there,” said Bates, whose team continues its pre-season schedule at Leeds next Sunday.
“Adam Balding carried well and asked questions of the defence, while Danny Williams got his first taste of rugby union with 20 minutes at the end.
“He obviously has a lot of learning to do in terms of the laws, but he defended well and took a very difficult catch over his head, which demonstrated the skill he has. His union education will continue in the Middlesex Sevens next weekend, we will work closely with him in training and over the next few weeks and months get him fully tuned to what is a totally new game for him.
“He showed he has the necessary awareness of space, he is a very good physical specimen and we will keep involving him in these games to get him up to speed in terms of the laws and patterns of rugby union.”
Looking at the game as a whole, Bates said: “The set piece went well, the new signings all contributed and I thought Spencer Davey was outstanding in the first half.
“Some of the Western Force kicking options were very intelligent, and we can certainly learn from that, but overall we were happy to get what was a very physical work-out so early in to our pre-season schedule.
“All of this is building up to September 7, we wouldn't normally play a game so early in August but this was a very useful training exercise for us.
“Right across the board the guys looked in good physical shape, they did many of the things we asked of them and we will build gradually as the season gets nearer. There is lots for us to work on, but we would expect that at this stage of pre-season when most of the work has been on the fitness side of things.
“What I was pleased with was that we matched them in terms of intensity, it was very competitive upfront and we put a lot of guys on the field during the second half. We now have lots of competition for places, which is raising standards, and we will see more of that as we get nearer to the Guinness Premiership.
“We chucked a load of guys on for the second half which was obviously going to disrupt the balance a bit, but these games are about getting game time for everyone and we will continue to rotate against Leeds next Sunday.”
Being the first Guinness Premiership side to test the new laws out on English soil, Bates said: “I didn't feel that the experimental law variations really had much of an impact, although you could see from some of the breakdown work that the Aussies were a bit sharper on some of the interpretations having had a season of playing with many of these new laws already.
“There were more quick line outs now that you can throw them in backwards, which sped the play up a bit, and then the fact you can pull down the maul meant there was less time spent with the ball stuck in the middle of a catch-and-drive, again speeding up the play for the fans which I thought was a positive step.”
Explaining one moment of second-half confusion for many of the assembled crowd of 3,469, Bates revealed he had given his blessing to Western Force sending on an extra player following the sin-binning of prop AJ Whalley for collapsing a scrum.
“In a pre-season game there's no point whatsoever in playing against 14 men, because what you want is a tough 80-minute work-out that will prepare you for the rigours of the Guinness Premiership,” he said.
“It would be a complete waste of time to have a man advantage when what both teams want is a good practice session, so we told the Western Force coaches we were happy for them to ship another guy on and make it 15 versus 15.
“I appreciate the referee has his job to do, and if he deems an offence worthy of a yellow card then he has to bin the guy. I have no problem with that at all, but when the whole point of the exercise is to get a good work-out then we gave our blessing to them sending on a replacement player. I understand some of the crowd weren't too happy about it, but these games are all about good quality practice, and we just thought the common sense approach was to keep it as 15 v 15.” |
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