Calum Green becomes a Newcastle Falcons centurion when he plays his 100th game for the club during Friday’s Premiership visit of Exeter Chiefs.
The lock leads the league for line-out takes once again this season and packs down in a side showing four changes from the one which won 23-20 at Worcester last weekend, Tom Arscott making his competitive debut for the Falcons.
The experienced winger joined the Falcons in the summer and partners Alex Tait out wide – the other two changes coming in the forward pack.
Adam Brocklebank makes his first Premiership start, the 23-year-old England Students loosehead having impressed from the bench in all three of the Falcons’ games this season, while Gary Graham comes into a reshuffled back-row in place of Callum Chick.
Newcastle were 28-20 winners on Exeter’s last visit to Kingston Park Stadium, director of rugby Dean Richards saying ahead of Friday’s game: “It’s a big challenge for us, and that’s exciting. We’re at home, we want to get our home account underway for the season and everyone’s looking forward to it.”
Respectful of a Chiefs side who top the Premiership table with a perfect 15 points from 15, the Falcons boss added: “Exeter are incredibly well-drilled, they’ve been together a long time and they have very little player turnover. That means they know their roles inside out, they execute it every week and that’s why they are where they are a consistent top-two side over a number of years.
“They have a superb understanding of how they want to play, they’re ruthless in executing it and that makes them very difficult to play against, but as we showed last season up here they are beatable. They’ve got a lot of quality and they all sing off the same hymn sheet, but we’ve also got a lot of threat within our own side and they’ll know they’re not in for an easy game against us.”
Meanwhile, the Chiefs have again made tweaks to their line-up for the game at Kingston Park.
Both Matt Kvesic and Sam Simmonds return to the starting line-up having missed out last week, Ian Whitten gets the nod over Ollie Devoto in the centre, while summer signing Alex Cuthbert gets his first start on the wing with Jack Nowell not risked on the 4G surface.
On the bench, there are welcome returns also for powerhouse forwards Dave Ewers and the fit-again Sam Hill.
Form: Newcastle Falcons ended a four-game losing run in Gallagher Premiership Rugby with their 23-10 win at Worcester last weekend. The Falcons have lost their last two home games at Kingston Park in Premiership Rugby but have not lost three in a row at the venue since December 2015. Exeter Chiefs have maximum points after three rounds whilst their only defeat in the tournament since February was in last season’s final. The Chiefs most recent away loss in Premiership Rugby was to Wasps at the Ricoh Arena in round 15 last season. Exeter’s only defeat in their last eight matches against Newcastle in Premiership Rugby was 20-28 at Kingston Park in round 13 last year.
The teams:
Newcastle: 15 Simon Hammersley, 14 Alex Tait, 13 Chris Harris, 12 Johnny Williams, 11 Tom Arscott, 10 Toby Flood, 9 Sonatane Takulua, 8 Mark Wilson, 7 Will Welch (c), 6 Gary Graham, 5 Will Witty, 4 Calum Green, 3 Logovi’i Mulipola, 2 George McGuigan, 1 Adam Brocklebank
Replacements: 16 Santiago Socino, 17 Sami Mavinga, 18 Jack Payne, 19 Tevita Cavubati, 20 Callum Chick, 21 Sam Stuart, 22 Joel Hodgson, 23 Tom Penny
Exeter: 15 Phil Dollman, 14 Santiago Cordero, 13 Henry Slade, 12 Ian Whitten, 11 Alex Cuthbert, 10 Joe Simmonds, 9 Jack Maunder, 8 Sam Simmonds, 7 Matt Kvesic, 6 Don Armand (c), 5 Jonny Hill, 4 Ollie Atkins, 3 Harry Williams, 2 Luke Cowan-Dickie, 1 Ben Moon
Replacements: 16 Jack Yeandle, 17 Alec Hepburn, 18 Tomas Francis, 19 Dave Dennis, 20 Dave Ewers, 21 Sam Maunder, 22 Gareth Steenson, 23 Sam Hill
Date: Friday, September 21
Venue: Kingston Park
Kick-off: 19:45 BST (18:45 GMT)
Referee: Andrew Jackson
Assistant referees: Hamish Smales, John Meredith
Television match official: Graham Hughes