Richards rewarded for giving youth a chance

Newcastle director of rugby Dean Richards felt he got rewarded for giving youth a chance as the Falcons kicked off their LV= Cup campaign with a 29-21 win over London Irish.

Rory Clegg kicked 19 points while tries from Warren Fury and Richard Mayhew in either half paved the way to a home success.

The second-half sin-binning of prop Jamie Hagan proved crucial as Mayhew’s score came while he was off to help a much-changed Falcons side move 26-18 ahead.

“We did some good things out there,” said Richards.

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“I quite like what we turned out there today. There were couple of defensive errors, but we showed more ambition, which was nice, and we were able to give a few players a run which was good.

“Some of our younger guys needed a game and they acquitted themselves well. I was pleased with a lot of things.

“The cup gives us an opportunity to try things and look at other players and the players know they can try things without too much of a consequence as you have in the Premiership and it gives the younger players great experience.

“We brought on the likes of Tom Penny, who is a good player, a quality player and I think he has a bright future. We were happy to throw him in at the deep end and that shows we have confidence in him.”

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Northampton assistant coach Alex King was full of praise for the youngsters that came off the bench and propelled his side to a bonus-point win over Gloucester at Franklin’s Gardens.

Northampton were cruising with a 21-6 lead when replacement scrum-half Alex Day, who was part of the England Under-20 side that won the Junior World Championship in the summer, came on for his debut and lit up the crowd with two tries in the final eight minutes to make it 33-6.

Ken Pisi’s first-half double plus 11 points from the boot of Glenn Dickson and two from Olver completed the rout.

King said: “It was a great performance, the forwards were outstanding and the replacements that came on did really well.

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“It is cracking for young guys to play in front of 12,000 fans. The young lads are training every day with the established players, they deserve their chance and hopefully they will crack on now.

“Alex finished off the job that Glynny (Ryan Glynn) started and it was great to see him get over for the bonus point try. I have got high hopes for all the young players.”