HAVING limped through the final weeks of 2009, Jon Golding has urged his Newcastle Falcons team-mates to hit the ground running when they start 2010 with a trip to inform London Wasps tomorrow.
Having briefly broken into the top half of the Guinness Premiership table in the autumn, Steve Bates’ side ended last year with three successive defeats to Northampton, Gloucester and Leeds Carnegie.
As a result, they now find themselves in seventh, with the gap between themselves and bottom-placed Leeds having been cut to just eight points.
Wasps are nine points above them in fifth, and having passed up a golden opportunity to close in on the Heineken Cup places in their final home game of last year, Golding is hoping a bright start to 2010 will put things right.
“I feel as if we’ve come a long way this year,” said the Ashington-born prop. “But the frustrating thing is that in the last few weeks of the year, we’ve come off the pace a bit.
“We should have closed out and won more games, but we know we have it in us and we have to show it on a more regular basis.
“We have a fantastic squad here, and we are well coached and get good support. As players, we just have to step up and take responsibility for the results.
“There has been a lot of change this season with 17 new signings, but those guys are all settled in now so it’s no longer an excuse.
“We’ve got to get a win this weekend to start the new year on a high. We know we can play rugby and we’re capable of it.”
Newcastle have never won at Wasps’ Adams Park home, but having upset the form book at both Bath and London Irish already this season, the North-Easterners will head south confident of springing a surprise.
“People might say it’s a ground we’ve never won on, but we’ve been to places like London Irish and Bath and really just ignored the history books,” said Golding.
“There’s no doubt that Wasps are a quality team and will be very difficult to beat, but I’m confident we can go down there and get the job done.”
Newcastle have made just one change to the side that lost against Leeds. Micky Young misses out with the calf injury he sustained last weekend, so Hall Charlton comes back into the side at scrum-half. Youngster Chris Pilgrim steps up to the matchday squad as the replacement number nine.
FALCONS: Tait, Bobo, Vickerman, Tu’ipulotu, Amesbury, Gopperth, Charlton; Golding, Vickers, Hayman, Hudson, Swinson, Afu, Wilson, Levi. Replacements: Thompson, Ward, Shiells, Sorenson, Welch, Pilgrim, Miller, Biggs.
■ Leeds Carnegie aim for liftoff in the Guinness Premiership when they take on fellow strugglers Bath at Headingley today.
The bottom-of-the-table Yorkshiremen take on the sixtime champions buoyed by a 16-15 win at Newcastle and back-to-back European Challenge Cup triumphs.
Head coach Neil Back knows a fourth successive victory would enable them to close the three-point gap on their West Country rivals.
‘‘If we win, then potentially we go off the bottom and look forward to a game against Quins which is winnable,’’ he said.
‘‘If we lose it does open up a bit of a gap. But that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world as we are only at the halfway stage of the season.
‘‘There are another 10 games after this so there’s plenty of time for movement in the table.
‘‘We just have to look at our own performance and what we can control and hopefully that will lead us to victory.’’
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