Louie Johnson’s late conversion earned a first away victory in the Premiership Cup for Newcastle Falcons since February 2019 as they won a thriller at Welford Road.
Newcastle led 15-5 at the break with tries from Alex Tait and Elliott Obatoyinbo, while Tian Schoeman added a conversion and penalty and Leicester replied through Tom Horton.
But the game really came to life after half-time, and Leicester looked to be heading to victory courtesy of tries by Sean Jansen, Josh Manz and a brace for Archie Vanes.
Tait’s second score had kept Falcons firmly in contention however, and Ollie Flecther’s try from a maul gave Johnson the chance to win it, which he duly took.
Academy coach PJ Butler praised the ‘bottle’ of his young team saying: “To show that level of fightback from the boys was outstanding – to win the penalty, kick it right into the corner, score from the line-out and then slot the conversion.
“It was a big show of bottle to strike the winning conversion away at Welford Road with the last kick of the game, and any time you get a result here you know you’ve had a good night.
“There’s lots of stuff to fix and nobody is pretending the performance was perfect, but it’s a happy changing room down there.”
Newcastle face Northampton in the cross-pool matches set to take place on the weekend of the 18th-19th November, but their elimination has already been confirmed while Leicester’s will still fancy their chances. If you fancy your chances, you can take this matchbook sign up offer.
Earlier in the week on Monday night London Irish beat fellow Londoners Saracens to all-but confirm their place in the semi-finals as winners of Pool C.
Facundo Gigena, Tom Hitchcock, Josh Basham, a Michael Dykes brace and a score from Alex Harmes gave Irish a 38-7 half-time lead, with Saracens’ sole reply coming from Ollie Stonham’s converted score.
Their relentless dominance eased after the break and Saracens crossed in the very first minute of the second period through Francis Moore, but Dykes’ third wrapped up victory with half an hour remaining.
Saracens managed to grab a pair of late consolation scores as Moore got a second and Charlie Reynolds-West crossed to grab them a four-try bonus point, but it was not enough to avoid confirmation of their elimination from the tournament, sat at the foot of their group.
In Pool A Bristol Bears hammered Bath 29-0 to go top of that group, although they have played one more game than the teams below them, Gloucester and Exeter, the former of whom they play in their next game.
Harry Thacker’s three tries inspired the Bears to victory, becoming the first hooker to score a hat-trick for the club in a cup game, and Bristol will now hope to progress.
Bristol were able to field a relatively strong team, owing to the fact they will not have a game this Saturday with Worcester’s permanent suspension from the league, with Deago Bailey and Henry Purdy adding to Bristol’s tally on a memorable but wet night for them at the Rec.
