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| Balders Backs Falcons Fans |
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| Falcons No.8 Adam Balding |
| 25 November 2009, 1:17 pm |
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| Newcastle No.8 Adam Balding has called on the Falcons fans to cheer his side to victory on Friday, as Northampton come to Kingston Park in a battle of the Guinness Premiership's form teams (kick-off 8pm). |
Both the Falcons and Saints have won their last three league outings, with Balding stating: “It would be great to see Kingston Park close to being packed out on Friday, because it makes such a difference to the players when the crowd gets right behind you.
“Last Sunday at London Irish our away supporters made a really extraordinary effort to get down there and cheer us on, and it would really lift the lads to run out on Friday and hear that roar with a good crowd in.”
With the Falcons having the chance to take third place in the table with a repeat of last season’s home win over Northampton, Balding insisted the Newcastle minds will be fully focused despite the emotional high of last weekend’s victory at high-flying London Irish.
“Friday is massive for us because you simply have to win your home games, and if we don’t do the business against Northampton then the London Irish game will have been for nothing,” said the 29-year-old.
“We have to back that up week in, week out, and only when you start to do that on a regular basis can you really put yourself in contention longer term.
“Northampton are a quality team playing really good rugby at the moment, they have outstanding players and coaches so they’ll naturally fancy their chances of coming up here and putting one over us.
“Phil Dowson was the captain here last year so will know the ins and outs of playing at Kingston Park, and I’m pretty sure he’ll be trying to give them some words of wisdom going into the game. From our own point of view we’re just concentrating on what we can control, it’s 80 minutes of rugby and if we put in the hard work like we did last Sunday then we’re in with a great chance.
“People might have started saying this could be our season, but as players we can’t get carried away with a few good results.
“All you can do is look to the next game, prepare as well as you can for that and the results should hopefully come on the back of that. It’s far too early to say that we’re going to win this or that because there are a lot of hard games left, but if we can build on what we’ve done so far then that’s the main thing.”
Having seen his role on the field gradually evolve into an hour-long blast rather than lasting the full game, Balding said: “I wouldn’t say that I don’t have a full 80 minutes in me, but at the end of the day it’s a squad game and somebody has to come off for somebody else to come on.
“If I was on the bench I’d want to get on and I don’t think being substituted is a reflection of how I’ve performed, sometimes it’s just a case of having given everything you’ve got for that hour or however long it is. As players all you can do is go out there and empty the tank, and if the coaches have plans to introduce other players at certain late stages then you’d have to say on recent results that they know what they’re doing.”
Highlighting a feelgood factor among the squad on the back of recent results, he explained: “We’ve had two fantastic away wins at Bath and London Irish, not many teams go to either of those grounds and win so there’s a great buzz in the camp right now.
“We can’t get too carried away because we still have a long way to go, but the work ethic among the lads this season has been absolutely spot-on.
“It’s all the little details in our preparation, here there and everywhere, they’re all coming together to make the big difference. As a pack, a back line and a team together we’re working hard, we know we can get even better but we feel as if we’re going in the right direction now.”
Asked what words of wisdom will be spoken in the build-up to Friday, Balding said: “It might sound strange, but I think sometimes you can say too much before a game.
“Emotionally you can almost play the match before you’ve even stepped on the pitch, but with a captain like Carl Hayman he really rations his words and only speaks when he needs to.
“When he does it’s always powerful stuff and straight to the point, which is how I like it, and it’s more just a case of creating an atmosphere where the players can feel something, even though there’s nothing there to see. That’s what it’s all about, and you could definitely feel it in the changing room before the game on Sunday.”
With his Falcons side continuing to defy the doubters, he added: “Everybody in the rugby world pretty much wrote us off last weekend, and thought we were going to get pumped down at London Irish.
“Perception can be a funny thing though, and I’ve seen it from both sides.
“When I was at Leicester everyone put us on a pedestal because of our record, and they wanted to see us fall. It was a similar kind of thing with Gloucester, but for whatever reason when I came to Newcastle I experienced the flip side.
“I think part of it is because we’re so far north, people either forget about us or don’t want to travel this far. Some of them think we shouldn’t be competing with the big boys, but at the end of the day it’s just an opinion and they’re perfectly entitled to it.
“The best thing to do is just ignore that kind of chat, go out there every week and give our best on the field. That’s what we did down at Bath, at home to Worcester and away to London Irish, but we have a lot of big games ahead of us and we’re not looking beyond the next one.”
Tickets for Friday’s game are available by calling 0871 226 60 60, via the club website or from Kingston Park in person.
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