Walder not deflated by home defeat

HEAD coach Dave Walder was proud of his Newcastle Falcons side despite being on the wrong end of a 27-5 scoreline at home to Gallagher Premiership leaders Leicester Tigers.

In front of their biggest home crowd since April 2019 – also against Leicester – the Falcons trailed 10-5 going into the business end of the game, where the table-toppers showed their class.

Walder said: “We felt we were in the fight, although in the last 15 minutes we fell away a bit.

“The effort we put in during the first 65 minutes I thought was really good and we spoke before the game about doing it for the boys who are leaving at the end of the season - not making it specifically about them but sending them off with a performance they can be proud of in their last home game.

“To a man I thought we did that and the intensity was good.”

His team trailing by ten at the break, Walder added: “We were into a pretty strong breeze in the first half, up against two of the best controlling half-backs in the league.

“We knew we were going to have to defend a lot with Richard Wigglesworth and George Ford there.

“We kept them at arm’s length pretty well for the most part and to be 10-0 down at half-time – I would never say you would be happy with that but we were comfortable enough in knowing we were still in the contest.

“We started the second half well, were deemed to be held up over the line on two occasions and then Josh Basham’s offload a metre out was just a whisker away from giving us a try.

“The camera angles were not in our favour for the two TMO referrals even though our lads were adamant they had scored that is how it goes sometimes.

“You look back on those things as major turning points but I was proud of the performance even though Leicester pulled away in the last ten minutes when we were chasing the game.”

He went on: “I thought we negated a lot of their strengths well in the first 65 minutes.

“They had a lot of territory in the first half without quite putting us to bed but those one or two opportunities they did take are probably why they are right at the top of the league.”