TWELVE months ago, Mathew Tait's burning ambition was to establish himself as a regular in the Newcastle Falcons first team.

Tonight, as the Guinness Premiership gets underway, the 19-year-old harbours exactly the same hopes ahead of the new campaign.

Yet if that suggests a year of stagnation and stand still, nothing could be further from the truth. In the space of a season, Tait has experienced more peaks and troughs than the stormiest of Atlantic weather-charts.

Set fair when he was called into Andy Robinson's England squad at the start of the Six Nations championship, the centre's career was blown off course when his eagerly-awaited debut in Wales degenerated into a personal and collective nightmare.

Promptly axed from the international scene, he subsequently dodged a succession of niggling injuries to make a series of fleeting appearances for a Falcons side suffering a severe end-of-season blip.

Partial amends were made in June as the teenager helped an England side shorn of its British Lions lift the Churchill Cup in Canada but, after all that has happened, total atonement does not demand such exotic climes.

Sale Sharks' Edgeley Park is hardly the most auspicious of venues but, as Newcastle kick-off the new season there this evening, Tait will be plotting his course towards rugby redemption.

"It's been a strange old year," admitted the Wolsingham-born youngster. "But, from a personal point of view, I can't ever have expected to have done as much as I have.

"Last year was my first season professionally, and I suppose it could hardly be described as normal. Lots of different things were happening to me but, in a way, they were stopping me from playing regularly and getting a bit of rhythm into my rugby.

"I know I've said this before, but my main aim this year is to play as often as I can for Newcastle. I want to be a regular because, even with everything that's happened, I haven't really been able to describe myself as that so far.

"I'm looking forward to playing a lot of rugby this season. My main aim is to get this club to where it needs and deserves to be."

Few players have experienced such a rapid rise as Tait, and even fewer have had to deal with such a brutal and badly-handled rejection.

But, rather than hindering his progress, the back insists his topsy-turvy 12 months have made him even more determined to succeed.

He has done a lot of growing up - both on and off the pitch - and is hoping his new-found maturity will be evident in his performances this season.

"I'm sure the experiences of last year will stand me in good stead," said Tait. "I feel ready for the domestic season and I know that, if I play well for Newcastle, other things might come along as well.

"I think I've changed as a person and a player from where I was at this time last year. I've just got my first house and I've got a mortgage to think about now, so I guess I've had to do a bit of growing up pretty quickly in that respect.

"On the pitch, I think I'm more aware of my role and better equipped to deal with the attention of the opposition.

"I was finding that people were starting to target me for special treatment at the end of last season and, at first, that was hard to handle.

"I guess that's the judge of how good a player I really am. If people target me, I can't do anything about it, but I have to learn how to deal with it and turn it to the team's advantage.

"I've got to live up to what people expect of me but, if it doesn't happen for me on a certain move, it might still open up a space for someone else to exploit."

That team ethic will be crucial if Newcastle are to improve on the disappointments of last term. A Heineken Cup quarter-final helped to mask a poor league campaign in which the Falcons sank like a stone after Christmas en route to a seventh-placed finish.

There were excuses for that downturn - serious injuries to the likes of Jonny Wilkinson, Colin Charvis and Matt Burke robbed Newcastle of experience, while the lightweight pack meant the club's runners were repeatedly starved of the ball - and those concerns have largely been addressed this summer.

Andy Perry and Tino Paoletti have added weight and experience to the forwards, while the appendix problem that forced Wilkinson into hospital during the club's pre-season tour of Japan, seems to have subsided.

"People can't accuse us of being a bit lightweight this year," said Tait. "Whenever I've done contact work this summer, there's been no small people to work with!

"We were unfortunate last year with a number of injuries to key players. Jonny and Colin were out for long periods of time and that unquestionably hit us hard.

"Hopefully, this season, our luck will be a bit better. If it is, there's no reason why we shouldn't have a very successful season."