London Welsh to experiment during four-week break from Aviva Premiership action

Justin Burnell, the London Welsh coach, said that he would use the upcoming four-week break from Aviva Premiership action to experiment with new players, following their sixth defeat in as many matches this season.

“It’s a crucial time for us to assess where we’re at,” Burnell said after the match. “We’ve also got to look at the players we’ve got and look at different combinations. We’ve got to get these guys back up to a level of freshness; we can’t go to Lyon [in the Challenge Cup, next Saturday] and then go through the same processes in the LV [Cup]. These four weeks are about looking at combinations and rest.”

New combinations are an urgent requirement for Welsh, whose lack of cohesion was responsible for Newcastle scoring all 23 of their points from turnovers. Twice the home side were stripped of possession in midfield; first Adam Powell, after some nice interplay between Calum Green and Mark Wilson, crossed before Powell and the winger Sinoti Sinoti tore a hole in the Exiles’ defence and Wilson sniped from a ruck.

A pair of penalties from the fly-half Juan Pablo Socino to one by Olly Barkley made it 16-6 at the break, but Welsh were the stronger side in the second half. They had the vast majority of territory and possession, but Newcastle’s defence held firm against a series of mauls and drives inside the 22, even after the flanker Wilson was sent to the sin bin for persistent team offences.

“I’m delighted for the boys today as we delivered,” Dean Richards, the Newcastle director of rugby, said after the win. “However, we lacked a bit of accuracy at times in the first half and dropped away a bit more in the second half but our defence was excellent which is good as it’s normally the weakest part of our game.

“Last week’s win against Exeter was the most important one as that result been coming for some time.”

Newcastle had but one foray in the second half and, perhaps inevitably given Welsh’s form and luck this season, it bore another try. First, the prop Pablo Henn knocked on near his own line before Barkley missed touch with a clearance. Newcastle ran it back and the scrum-half Ruki Tipuna sold the defence with a dummy before going over.

That ended the scoring as Newcastle lost cohesion after Richards made five changes just short of the hour, just as he had in the win against Exeter the previous weekend. “Last week the same substitutions made a massive impact on the game but today it didn’t. Ally Hogg tweaked a hamstring but the others were tactical,” he said.

An eight-point gap at the bottom of the table may not look insurmountable, but there was a gulf in class between the Premiership’s two bottom teams.

The fact that a 20-point defeat is Welsh’s narrowest of the season is an ominous portent. But Burnell remains positive. “I don’t think the league was decided. There are still 16 games to go and we’ve got spirit. Every loss is disappointing but this was a vast improvement from us.”

The league may not have been decided, but on this evidence it swiftly will be.