IT is more than a decade since Alan Tait claimed a Premiership winners’ medal with Newcastle Falcons, but the club’s new head coach claims there is no reason why he cannot engineer another title triumph at Kingston Park.

Tait was confirmed as Steve Bates’ successor early this week with Falcons struggling in tenth position in the Guinness Premiership table.

It is 2002 since they finished in the top half, and with a club like Saracens playing in front of 50,000-plus crowds at Wembley and Leicester Tigers regularly packing more than 20,000 into a redeveloped Welford Road, it is getting harder and harder to compete with the cream of the English game.

Tait was a fresh-faced centre when Newcastle won the league in 1998, and while he accepts things will not change overnight, he can envisage a time when the club is back competing at the top of the table.

“There are teams hiring out Wembley and getting crowds of 50,000, but that doesn’t mean we can’t compete with them,” said Tait.

“You have to grow into that gradually.

“I certainly hope we can become a Heineken Cup team again, then you can think about moving on from there.

“We made massive changes last year, I think we brought in 18 new players and to expect that to gel in the first year is unrealistic.

“We had a good start, and that raised expectations, but I always thought it would take time to get the best results.

“You’ve got to build gradually and have a stability of personnel.”

To that end, Tait is not expecting a repeat of the largescale upheaval that saw 23 players leave Kingston Park last summer.

Skipper Carl Hayman will play his final game before leaving to join Toulon tomorrow, while fellow New Zealander Mark Sorenson is also heading out of Kingston Park to join Northampton.

New signings are in the pipeline, but Tait expects to welcome five or six new faces ahead of the start of pre-season training in June rather than be overseeing another revamp of the squad.

Tonga international Tonga Lea’aetoa will arrive as a direct replacement for Hayman, while Falcons are close to agreeing a deal for highlyrated Bristol centre Luke Eves.

Tait has also turned his attention to the North-East rugby scene, and is poised to offer professional contracts to Tynedale hooker Joe Graham and Blaydon centre James Fitzpatrick.