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12 facts as Newcastle Falcons face the daunting task of Toulon away
Newcastle and Toulon have met just twice in European competition, both games during the 2011-12 Challenge Cup group stage when the Falcons triumphed 6-3 at Kingston Park Stadium before going on to lose the return leg.
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Director of rugby Dean Richards said: “Playing rugby in the south of France on these big European weekends is something a bit special, and the players will respond to that. The atmosphere in Toulon is as good as any, and we just want to get out there and enjoy it.
“Whether they’ll be on a similar sort of footing this time round as when they were flying high a couple of seasons ago remains to be seen, because they’re third from bottom in the Top 14 and struggling a little bit. We’ll see what happens in that regard, but on paper they’re a fantastic team. They spend probably 20 million more than us so you’d expect them to be, but for whatever reason they’re not performing at the moment.
“Toulon are undoubtedly a good side when they turn it on, they can be outstanding at times and we need to make sure we’re on top of our own game. We know where their strengths are, where their weaknesses are and it will be a very interesting contest. If we’re on song and we play well I see no reason why we can’t come away with the win.”
• This will be the first Heineken Champions Cup meeting between RC Toulon and Newcastle, however, the clubs did play eachother in the 2011/12 Challenge Cup pool stage with both picking up home wins.
• Toulon have lost their last two games in the tournament, but they’ve never lost three consecutive fixtures in Europe.
• This will be Newcastle’s third campaign in the European Cup and their first since 2004/05 when Jonny Wilkinson, later a two-time champion with Toulon, featured for Falcons on their way to the quarter-finals.
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• Falcons have lost nine of their last 10 away games against TOP 14 opposition in European competition (W1) as well as all three of their away games against French sides in the top flight.
• Toulon have won 23 of 24 home games in the tournament with Saracens (Round 1 2016/17) the only visiting side to win at Stade Mayol.
• Toulon have averaged just 16.5 points per match across their last 10 games against Gallagher Premiership opposition (W6, L4).
• Toulon made more carries (153) per game than any other side last season, gaining the most metres (483) and beating the most defenders (26.6) on average.
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• Newcastle (91%) were the only side to manage a tackle success rate above 90% in the Challenge Cup last season.
• Josua Tuisova beat 30 defenders in the tournament last season, only Nemani Nadolo of Montpellier (38) registered a higher total.
• Newcastle’s Adam Radwan gained the most metres (644), beat the most defenders (45) and made the joint most breaks (13, level with Gloucester’s Henry Purdy) in the Challenge Cup last season.?
• Last season, Toulon beat the most defenders of any team in the pool stage (155) with Josua Tuisova (23) and Facundo Isa (19) both featuring among the top 10 individual players.
• Toulon conceded just three second-half tries, during last season’s pool stage – the lowest in the competition.
Venue: Stade Félix-Mayol
Kick-off: 15:15
Referee: Ben Whitehouse (Wal)
Assistant Referee 1: Craig Evans (Wal)
Assistant Referee 2: Wayne Davies (Wal)
TMO: Neil Patterson (Wal)
Citing Commissioner: Maurizio Vancini (Ita)
TV: FR2 / BT Sport / beIN SPORTS
Comments on RugbyPass
It was rubbish to watch, Blues weren’t even present. Did what they had to do, nothing more. Should be better next week against canes.
1 Go to commentsI’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
69 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
1 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
3 Go to commentsIt is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real people. They claim free speech. Free speech for anonymous trolls/voilent thugs threatening people under false names? The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
2 Go to commentsSo if this ain’t the best Irish team ever then who exactly is? I don’t remember any other Irish team being this good & winning a series in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Yes I may rip them often for 8 X QF RWC exits & twice not even making it to the QF, but they’re a damn good team who many think can only improve, including me!
69 Go to commentsNot a squeek out of Leinster for weeks about this match. So quiet. The first team have been quitely building for this encounter under Nienaber’s direction. All fresh, all highly motivated. They are expecting a season’s best performance from Northhampton. They will match that. They will be fresher and apparently they will have 80,000 out of the 83,000 shouting for them. I do expect Northhampton to turn up big time. Not to be missed. On a tangent it is evident how the loss of a few Premiership teams has in some respect helped other Premiership teams and England. More quality over less teams makes the teams better, which has a knock on effect on England. Not the only factor contributing to England’s rise but one of them.
3 Go to commentsOur very own monster teddy bear Ox😍💪
17 Go to commentsThis is might be the most generalised, entitled, patronising, out-of-pocket cultural indictment on a group of people you’ll ever see on what is supposedly a sports publication. I can only assume the author is weak like a woman or homosexual. I’m feeling an incredible range of emotions but I am not quite sure how to express them. I might go beat up a hockey player - assuming that’s okay with Duane and the boys? 🙂
9 Go to commentsBest thing the Welsh clubs could do is apply to join Gallagher prem surely be more exciting matches for there support than they have now.
2 Go to commentsRugbyPass writers are useless! you guys should get a real job because you all suck at writing about rugby!!!
9 Go to commentslooking forward to RWC2027 …. Boks on mission impossible for the Three-in-a-row, ABs to prove they being on par, France wishing to crown the “DuPont-era”, Ireland knocking on the Semi-Door ….. until then we’ll probably have to deal with Weird Ben’s fantasy-RWC23 (fun fact is, the drivel always creates a flooding of comments) …..
223 Go to commentsBen Smith you really make some good points in this article, the Springboks were not close to perfect and good still beat the All Blacks, imagine if they were as good as they were against France what a hiding the All Blacks would have gotten… maybe another Twickenham drubbing
223 Go to comments