● Hard-fought but comfortable win seals double over Newcastle and takes Cockerill’s side clear at top of pool

Edinburgh took a commanding lead in Pool 5 of the Heineken Champions Cup with this hard-earned away win on a freezing afternoon in Newcastle.

As with the home game nine days previous, Richard Cockerill’s side had to come from behind at half-time but did so with aplomb as they once again shut out the Falcons in the second half, gradually took control and struck with tries from centre James Johnstone and wing Duhan van der Merwe to complete the home and away double over the English Premiership outfit.

The Scots were the superior team for the majority of the contest but a lack of accuracy at times prevented them from wrapping things up more comfortably as the game continued to be an attritional arm wrestle right up to the closing ten minutes.

The opening exchanges were fairly even, Scotland centre Chris Harris showing the Edinburgh midfield of Johnstone and Chris Dean a clean pair of heels at one point, but the visitors were dominating possession without carving out any real attacking danger,

Falcons full-back Simon Hammersley sparked another home attack which fizzled out as Edinburgh seemed to be keeping a grip on proceedings.

The stalemate was broken in the 19th minute when a speculative high ball by Jaco van der Walt was claimed and Newcastle scrum-half Sonatane Takulua hared up the left flank before exploiting the gaps in the Edinburgh defence to feed wing Sinoti Sinoti for the opening score.

Toby Flood missed the conversion but four minutes later Van der Walt was bang on target with a penalty from 35 metres out to cut the deficit,

Flood stretched the lead out to 8-3 with a straightforward penalty in the 28th minute but that was pegged back by Van der Walt five minutes later as Edinburgh began to exert some forward dominance. They finished the half on the defensive but were able to comfortably contain some pretty unthreatening Newcastle forays to leave the game finely poised at the break.

Cockerill got the dynamic start to the second half he no doubt demanded during the interval as powerful wing Van der Merwe made his first major impact on the game as he chased his own kick and bundled Hammersley into touch to set up the attacking platform.

Henry Pyrgos pinged a tantalising chip which bounced under the home crossbar and Johnstone, pictured left, was there to gather and ground.

Van der Walt added the extras and Edinburgh were in front for the first time and Pyrgos put another delightful kick in behind to force an attacking lineout in the right corner. It looked like the visitors had their hosts on the rack and were set to take a decisive lead but a lack of patience saw the ball spun wide prematurely and fumbled wide out to squander a perfect opportunity to screw the nut.

Edinburgh were by far the better team by this stage and, but for some costly naivety, would have been more to the good on the scoreboard. They did tick it another three points on to it in the 61st minute when Van der Walt knocked over another penalty to take them beyond a converted score at 16-8 up.

It was the 69th minute before Newcastle managed to get inside the visiting 22. The Edinburgh defence was stretched but held firm as the Falcons settl corn you ofth eout line

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