STEVE Diamond insists there will be no panicking at Newcastle despite their 22-game run without a Premiership victory.
He said: “I’m disappointed but I’m not panicking; I saw enough in those first 50 minutes to know we will be competitive in this league. “I don’t like conceding four tries but credit to Bristol, they took their chances, and there’s lots we learned out there.
“We’re not going to panic, we’re not bringing the lads in on Sunday for a rollocking. We’ll just go through it calmly on Monday.
“We had an error-strewn 15/20 minutes in the second half which is the bit that annoyed me the most, but we’ll work to get that out of our game.”
Bristol DoR Pat Lam said: “That was tough. I don’t believe the other eight teams are all going to come up here and win. We did a professional job second half. There is a lot of positive stuff for our first game. We’ve got five points, and that’s huge.”
TEAMS
NEWCASTLE: Obatoyinbo 5 (Redshaw 66, 6); Radwan 5, Doherty 5, Arnold 7.5 (Brown 75), Stevenson 6; Connon 6, Stuart 5 (Davis 69, 5); Brocklebank 6 (de Bruin 52, 5), Blamire 7 (Fletcher 69, 5), Palframan 7 (McCallum 52, 5), Hawkins 6 (Scott 69, 5), McDonald 7, Lockwood 7 (Leatherbarrow 72), Gordon 6, Chick (c) 6 BRISTOL: Malins 8; Naulago 7 (Lane 72), Janse van Rensburg 7, Williams 7.5, Ibitoye 6.5; MacGinty 8 (Jenkins 77), Randall 9 (Marmion 79); Genge 6 (Woolmore 52-73, 6), Oghre 7, Lahiff 6 (Kloska 52, 5), Dun 6 (Grondona 76), Batley 6, Luatua 7 (Caulfield 69, 6), Heenan 6, Harding (c) 7
REFEREE: Anthony Woodthorpe ATTENDANCE: 5,116
Star player Harry Randall –Bristol Bears