Newcastle Falcons suffer nightmare journey home from South Africa

Newcastle Falcons bid to end their ten game losing run this season has become even tougher after a nightmare journey back from the European Challenge Cup 35-13 loss to the Lions in Johannesburg.

The Falcons players had their flight cancelled and needed to take three planes to eventually arrive back today via Cape Town which has forced a rescheduling of their training for the Premiership clash with Bristol on Friday night at Kingston Park.

Bristol are currently eighth in the table with Newcastle eight points adrift at the bottom.

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Alex Codling, the head coach, was already facing a tough job in his first season in charge and admitted: “It’s the toughest run I have ever had as a coach and we all feel the pain.

“The team’s flight was cancelled on Sunday and they have had to now get three flights back; from Johannesburg to Cape Town; Cape Town to Heathrow and Heathrow to Newcastle and it is just another challenge and the boys have adapted.

“Our team manager has done a brilliant job and they have just arrived back after travelling for about 32 hours. It does pose huge challenges around travel, logistics and how you manage bodies with a smaller squad.

“It will have an impact (on training) and we are just finalising matters and things were put in place once we knew the flight was cancelled. We will know more about that in the morning after the boys have had a good night’s sleep.

“We will manage that over the next 24 hours and 17 of the squad stayed here and a number of teams did the same including Bristol who we play on Friday night.

Building for Bristol. 😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/PmjWYLhRpK

— Newcastle Falcons (@FalconsRugby) December 19, 2023

“What has happened with the flights has reinforced the decision (to leave players at home) and if we had all been out in South Africa it would have made things very difficult.

“Hopefully, Guy Pepper is available this week and Mateo Carreras is not far away from returning potentially this week. The boys are in good spirits and are desperate to win in front of a big crowd on Friday night. It is massive game for us and we came close to beating Montpellier at home coming back from 17-0 down and we just have to keep working hard.

“What do I want for Christmas? Just a win would be nice.”

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Under the lights 💡 on Friday night.@BristolBears 🐻 are coming to Toon.#TrueNorth #BePartOfIt

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— Newcastle Falcons (@FalconsRugby) December 18, 2023