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| Charlton Ready For Starting Chance |
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| Hall Charlton starts at scrum half against Connacht on Friday |
| 5 December 2007, 3:08 pm |
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| Newcastle scrum half Hall Charlton insists Friday’s European Challenge Cup trip to Ireland represents the ideal chance for him to stake a claim for the Falcons’ No.9 shirt, as his side come up against Connacht in Galway (kick-off 6.30pm). |
The 28-year-old makes his 152nd appearance for the club at the Sportsground, having earned the right with a string of outstanding performances for the Development Team over the course of the campaign.
“In terms of getting starts for the first team it has been a tough season, but from an injury point of view it’s gone a lot better and I’m happy to be fit and healthy,” said the Co.Durham man.
“Being injured is a lot worse than not playing at all, like last season when I had a bad run of getting injured, doing rehab, coming back and getting injured again. It seemed like a never-ending cycle, and then getting back in to the first team was next to impossible with the way Lee Dickson and James Grindal were playing.”
Having faced a battle to squeeze in to the first team ranks due to the standard throughout the squad, he said: “This year has been frustrating to an extent because I haven’t been playing for the first team, but I’ve just got on with working hard every day in training, playing well for the Development Team and waiting for my chance.
“We have huge competition for places at scrum half with myself, Dicko and Grinders, then guys like Ross Samson and Micky Young also being outstanding prospects from the academy at the moment.
“If you only have two guys going for the shirt then it can be the case that you get in to a bit of a comfort zone, because you know that at worst you’re going to be on the bench for the first team.
“The situation we have now means as well as playing to your best you have to train your socks off every day – which you should obviously do as a professional anyway – but it does add that little bit extra when you know you’re really battling just to be involved in the match-day 22.”
Having put in a storming performance in his only first team start of the season in the 18-18 draw at Kingsholm, Charlton said: “I was pleased with my performance down at Gloucester, and it was frustrating not to be included for the matches following that game.
“I went in to see Fletch to have a chat about it, but we’re all adults here so he was happy to go through the decision with me and explain his thinking. I can’t really ask any more than that, he was very honest and upfront with me, and the message was just to keep playing well for the Development Team to earn my chance again.
“I feel that the more I play the better I get, so playing 70 or 80 minutes every Monday for the Development Team rather than 15 or 20 from the bench for the first team means I go in to this game feeling really sharp and in some good form. I’ve enjoyed the A-League stuff, I think it’s helped my game and I’m now looking forward to Friday night.”
Focusing on the Connacht match, he stated: “It should be a pretty close game, because they are a good side.
“I’ve been speaking to Mike McCarthy this week, a good friend of mine, and he says they’ve been right in all their games up until the 70-minute mark, and for whatever reason teams have tended to get the better of them right at the death. Obviously that didn’t happen last weekend with their victory over Glasgow, and so we know we’re in for a tough 80 minutes.
“We have a very strong pack for this game, especially with Carl Hayman playing from the start for the first time, and with pretty much our full-strength back line it should be a cracking game.
“Having said that. Connacht is never an easy place to go because they have the weather in Western Ireland, the grass is about a foot long on the field and a lot depends on how we cope with the conditions.”
With the prospect of playing against former Falcons colleague McCarthy looming large, Charlton joked: “He’s a funny sort of bloke.
“He has a fairly unique sense of humour and he makes allsorts of animal noises out on the field which are aimed at distracting the opposition, and are always amusing. He has a lot of weird mannerisms which possibly people don’t know about, and it will be strange to be on the opposite side to him on Friday.” |
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