Newcastle come from behind to stun Toulon

Newcastle kick-started their Heineken Champions Cup campaign with a stunning 26-25 win against three-time European champions toul on on their own patch, becoming just the second side to do so.

Dean Richards’ outfit found themselves ten points behind early on after conceding one of the quickest tries in the history of the competition when giant lock Romain Taofifenua charged down a clearing kick with only 21 seconds on the clock.

Francois Trinh-duc added the conversion and then kicked a seventh-minute penalty to make it 10-0, but that was as good as it got for the hosts, who had three players sent to the sin-bin.

After that nervy start, Newcastle hit back and Fijian No 8 Nemani Nagusa won a turn-over in the Toulon 22 to allow Joel Hodgson to kick a simple penalty.

Falcons hooker Kyle Cooper, pictured, then burrowed over from two metres out after Nagusa had been halted on the line, with Hodgson adding a penalty and a conversion.

Hodgson’s second penalty on 31 minutes made it 16-10 as he punished Gros for his yellow card offence, but the lead was cut to a point when Toulon’s Raphael Lakafia just reached the line.

There were no points in the third quarter, but Welsh referee Ben Whitehouse awarded a penalty try to the visitors when Ikprefan hauled down wing Sinoti Sinoti with a high tackle following a Hodgson clean break.

Hodgson then saw yellow for a deliberate knock-on in his 22 and French skipper Guilhem Guirado converted the driving line-out, with Trinh-duc adding the extras to get his side to within a point.

The home outside half then edged his side in front on 62 minutes with a penalty, but Hodgson had the final word with a 70th minute penalty.