England back row Wilson becomes Newcastle captain
England back row Mark Wilson will captain Newcastle Falcons in the upcoming 2020/21 Gallagher Premiership season after the World Cup finalist returned from his loan spell at Sale Sharks. The 30-year-old has scored 41 tries in his 224 appearances for the Falcons since coming through the club’s academy and he now takes over the captaincy from last season’s co-captains George McGuigan and Michael Young.
Wilson said: “I’m massively honoured to take on the role. I’ve been with the Falcons since I was 14, so to get the chance to captain the club is a privilege. Although I’ll have the C next to my name it’s important to realise we have some unbelievable leaders within the team who have a lot of experience and have played more than 100 or 200 games for us. It’s definitely not a case of one man being captain and taking on the whole thing without any help.
“Will Welch captained the side for years and I’m excited to work alongside him again, plus guys like Micky Young and George McGuigan, who led the team so well last season. It’s really interesting speaking to all of them to get their feedback on how they found things, and we have got a fantastic senior leadership group with guys like Toby Flood also involved.”
Speaking about the change, Newcastle boss Dean Richards explained: “George and Micky did an absolutely outstanding job last season in leading us to promotion after an unbeaten campaign. They both remain extremely important parts of our leadership group and can be proud of how they handled the role.
“Along with our other senior players, they will be a great help to Mark as he takes on the captaincy for the new season and we are in the privileged position of having a wealth of leadership experience. I know how much this means to Mark and what a great job he will do.
Mark Wilson will captain Newcastle Falcons during the 2020-21 season. The Rugby World Cup finalist has scored 41 tries in his 224 appearances for the Falcons, and takes over the role from last season’s co-captains George McGuigan and Michael Young. https://t.co/eDIFAd4fWs pic.twitter.com/vrZTCM9MrD
— Newcastle Falcons (@FalconsRugby) September 22, 2020
“He has captained the team many times on an interim basis. He is a natural leader and someone who commands instant respect through his own actions. He has made the step up into international rugby on the back of sheer hard work over a consistent period of time, and it’s great to have him back.”
Back with the Falcons after a loan spell with Sale Sharks, Wilson, who has 19 England caps, said: “It was a great learning curve, although it obviously didn’t pan out how I would have wanted in terms of the amount I was able to play for them.
“I would have loved to have had the opportunity to put my best foot forward for them on more occasions, but that was outside of my control. It was still a great experience, I learned a few things from some top players there and worked in a different environment. Coming back to Newcastle, I can hopefully use that knowledge and look to help take the club forward.”
The early end to the Championship last season and the late start to the 2020/21 Premiership has meant an extended off-season for Newcastle, who will have waited eight months between games when they eventually kick off the Gallagher Premiership on the weekend of November 20-22.
“There’s a really good feeling around the place,” said Wilson, whose side will play pre-season friendlies against Ealing Trailfinders on November 7 and 13. “Everyone has turned up with a really good attitude for pre-season, the boys seem to have trained hard during the lockdown and they arrived back in unbelievable nick.
“I’ve also been really impressed with the quality of the young lads we’ve got coming through, and I’m just loving being back. People might debate whether it’s a good or bad thing that we’re not playing at the minute when the other Gallagher Premiership clubs are getting in a load of games, but I agree with what our new defence coach Nick Easter said in an interview I read with him recently.
“He was basically saying this is a great period for us to just learn loads from what’s going on around the league, like the new breakdown interpretations, and also get a good gauge of the opposition we’re going to face. We have got an extended period of time to put in a really good pre-season, and to create a style of play which enables us to compete strongly against every team.”
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— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) September 20, 2020
Comments on RugbyPass
🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
27 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
27 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
27 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
27 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
27 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to comments