More fiery tackling can crack Newcastle

English champions one week, unbeaten league leaders the next. There is no room for those characteristic Irish relapses in the Allied Dunbar Premiership, as London Irish have been persistently reminding themselves all week in advance of today's meeting with Newcastle at Sunbury.

"We have to overcome that Irishness if you like," admitted Willie Anderson. "The guys have been well aware of that all week, from straight after the game against Wasps. This is actually a harder challenge."

"It's important to go out in the same way and it's important to get the performance. The guys were disappointed with their performance against Gloucester two weeks ago but they were outstanding last week in terms of their commitment."

In fact, after the high of last week's stirring defeat of Wasps, it's probably no harm that nouveau riche Newcastle retained their 100 per cent record at the same time. They come to Sunbury as the biggest scalps around and given the Irish psyche that's probably as well. Given the feel-good factor aroused last week, and this is the only match in London, another huge crowd should stimulate the home team further.

If there is one recurring theme to the big Irish wins this season over high-class English opposition (Connacht, twice, over Northampton; Leinster over Leicester; Munster against Harlequins and London Irish against Wasps last week) it is that tackling and defensive organisation won those games as much as anything else.

London Irish almost doubled their weekly average against Wasps, with a combined tackle count of 101, Mark McCall leading the way with Kieron Dawson close behind. A similar willingness to put their bodies on the line, with a mentally alert, inyour-face attitude will probably be required again.

"There's no doubt defence is the big thing, and it just shows you that if you apply pressure even to good teams, the cracks will appear," agrees Anderson.

After a brace of opening defeats both in the Premiership and the European Conference, London Irish's run of five wins in their last six hardens Anderson's belief that the Gloucester performance was more of a one-off than the win over Wasps.

Make no mistake, the Falcons demand that 'Irish rise to the challenge again. Newcastle have suffered only one blemish in their 10 competitive outings, and that was a dead Conference tie against Biarritz after they had run up 60 and 72 points against Perpignan and Edinburgh.

"It's been going all right - no more than that," said Rob Andrew yesterday. "We have achieved encouraging wins at Bath, Sale and Perpignan, but London Irish is the sort of place where it is really difficult to win - as my old club Wasps found out last week.

"The European Conference enabled our team to develop with some easier matches, including, with due respect, the fixtures against Edinburgh. But this Premiership is more testing than Europe."

"It's a clear case of a team of individuals against an individual team," adds Anderson. "By that I mean our whole would probably add up to more than the sum of our parts. Newcastle are tremendously talented and man for man they're as good if not better than us over the 15 positions."

"So how do we respond? It's a real challenge. There's a consistency factor, a performance factor and how we compete in the second phase."

For all Newcastle's prolific points scoring, last week saw Andrew kick them to a dour 18-12 win over Richmond. The former English out-half plays it safe, sitting in the pocket and kicking for position or else offloading to powerhouse centre V'aiga Tuigamala. Anderson has also identified number six Pat Lam as the third key Falcon, for Newcastle orchestrate much of their back-row moves off the other Samoan.

The relatively slight McCall and David Humphreys will therefore have to be as physically competitive as last week. But perhaps there will be a relatively greater demand placed on the positioning, return kicking and counter-attacking of the in-form Conor O'Shea and wingers Justin Bishop and Michael Corcoran, who inherits the left-wing slot and the place-kicking duties vacated by Niall Wood, sidelined by a bruised foot. Another big display by Dawson would go some way toward copper-fastening his first cap.

Thus, as a sub-plot, this is also a big game for the contenders to the full Irish team to play the All Blacks, given the presence of Brian Ashton. The tightest call of all may be second-row, where Gabriel Fulcher can remind the Irish coach of the steadying leadership which held a rocky ship together on the development tour. It is, indeed, a big game.

On the domestic front, the provincial leagues continue. In Leinster, the final round of Kitty O'Shea championship games will see Lansdowne join Terenure (at home to Clontarf) in the semi-finals and earn a trip to Carlow provided Greystones don't beat them by seven points or more and score seven tries in the process.