Richards lauds Falcons after earning return to top flight

DIRECTOR of rugby Dean Richards praised his side's resilience after they sealed promotion back to the Premiership at the first time of asking with a 49-33 aggregate win over Bedford Blues last night.

Richards has made no secret of his feelings towards the format of promotion in the RFU Championship, but despite walking away with the league, Falcons made sure of their return by seeing off the Blues at Kingston Park.

After celebrating last night's win, Richards will turn his attentions to forming a squad capable of keeping Newcastle in the top flight and despite his relief at securing their return, Richards still has ill feelings towards the way his side have had to earn promotion.

"I'm happy, but I still think it's a rotten way to go up," Richards said. "I've enjoyed these games, even the semi-finals, and they've taught us a few things we needed to address, but it's like being in purgatory.

"If you've got ambitions of going up and have laid the foundations and have to go through this it doesn't seem right, but we've got through it.

NO WAY THROUGH: Newcastle Falcons' Ryan Shortland is tackled by Bedford Blues' Paul Tupai, left, and James Short at Kingston Park last night

"We got the result. We saw the nerves in the boys early on when we gave away quite a few penalties, but later on in the game they were infringing in the same way and we capitalised on that.

"It was a relief but only from the point of view that we thought the system was unjust and it was there setting people up to fall rather than rewarding people for building things and having a degree of consistency over the year. I wouldn't want to go through it again and any side that wants to come up next season will have to do it and I feel sorry for them."

There were nervous times for the hosts, whose nine-point lead at the start of the night had been cut to three after 20 minutes, but tries from Ryan Shortland and Alex Tait along with another superb kicking performance from Jimmy Gopperth in his last game for the club before joining Leinster sealed the win over two legs.

Bedford did their best to overturn their first-leg defeat with Jake Sharp in particular putting in a performance that deserved to be on the winning side with the fly half kicking all his side's points on the night.

But it was a resilient display from the new champions and they justified exactly why they should be back in the top flight of rugby.

After soaking up the celebrations over the next few days, Richards will turn his attentions to planning for next season.

He said: "We've got a vision at the club and we want to go and achieve something. It's all about the building blocks and laying the foundations and we're starting to do that in terms of where we want to be.

"In three, four, five years time we don't want to be languishing at the bottom of the Premiership and I think people have bought into that and know where we want to be."

Gopperth got the ball rolling with a penalty in the sixth minute, but no sooner had play got back underway, Bedford scored their own through Sharp.

The Blues number ten put his side ahead on the night ten minutes later with his second penalty, and a third came shortly after to close the gap to three points on aggregate.

With several changes to the Blues line-up, Richards expected a tougher test than last week's first leg and the Falcons director of rugby had cause for concern with his side giving away some cheap points.

The first half became the battle of the number tens with Gopperth scoring another penalty, but the hosts finally crossed the line with a superb team try.

Shortland was the man to cross the line after some slick passing play on the right side and although referee Greg Garner consulted the video replay, the try was given to put Falcons 11-9 ahead.

Gopperth missed a tricky conversion from the right touchline and minutes later Sharp added a drop goal to his tally as Bedford looked to claw the deficit back.

Two more Sharp penalties did just that, but Gopperth sent the ball between the sticks on the stroke of half time with the score 35-27 in Falcons' favour.

Newcastle started the second half with an advantage one point less than they had at the beginning of the night, but after another Sharp penalty, Alex Tait crossed the line for his side's second try.

Gopperth missed the conversion again with his kick from the left touch line striking the post, but two more penalties from the departing New Zealander secured the win.

Newcastle: Tait, Cato, Hufanga, Powell, Shortland, Gopperth, Lawson; Shiells, Vickers, Tomaszczyk, del Fava, MacLeod, Wilson, Welch, Hogg.

Replacements: Thompson, Golding, Wilson, Hudson, Tu'ifua, Pilgrim, Luveniyali.

Bedford: Ransom, Short, Dodge, Atkinson, Bassett, Sharp, Veenendaal; Reeves, Spurling, Seal, Howard, Tupai, Gilanders, Fox, Fenton-Wells.

Replacements: Cochrane, Boulton, Gulliver, Barrell, Baldwin, Vass, Pritchard.

Attendance: 7,651