NEWCASTLE Falcons head coach Alan Tait is facing a front row injury crisis ahead of next week’s Amlin Challenge Cup away game in Montpellier.

Newcastle kicked off their European campaign with a 22-16 win over Bourgoin on Thursday night, but the victory came at a price as both of their props suffered injury setbacks.

Grant Shiells turned his ankle and was forced to hobble from the field inside the opening ten minutes, while Micky Ward failed to finish the first half as he suffered a similar injury setback.

Both players are major doubts for next week’s trip across the Channel, and with European Challenge Cup rules preventing unregistered players from being drafted in, Tait is short of options at the front of the scrum.

“I’m a bit concerned about the front row at the moment,”

admitted the Falcons boss.

“I’m getting injuries all over the place and it’s a bit of a worry.

“Numbers are sparse, and if this carries on, we’ll run out of numbers before long.

“There’s a lot of front rowers going down, so we’ll just have to see how things are stacking up when we meet up again on Monday.

“Grant went off very early and his ankle has blown up like a balloon. Micky’s done his ankle, and the same thing’s happened to Jeremy Manning as well. It’s a recurring theme at the moment and I don’t really know what to do about it.”

While Thursday’s victory was gritty rather than spectacular, the major positive to emerge was the form of Newcastle’s youngsters.

Joe Graham and Mark Wilson impressed as they made their senior Falcons debuts, while teenage fly-half Joel Hodgson came off the bench to slot a valuable conversion late on.

“Confidence comes from winning,” said Tait. “The youngsters got their first taste of winning (on Thursday) and that’s something that all the big sides in years gone by have built on.

“We saw the spirit of these boys. They’re always happy to throw the ball about and you’ve got to back them.

“They’ve been in good form for the A team and they carried that forward. The A team beat Leicester by 40 points and went down to Leeds on Monday night and got a good result.

“They’ve been flying the flag for us and a lot of them were rewarded with a place in the first team. They helped us come away with a victory.”