Kris Chesney tries to break through the Newcastle defence

Newcastle 20 (14)
Tries: Parling, Crichton
Cons: Crichton 2
Pen: Crichton 2

Saracens 14 (14)
Tries: Gustard
Pen: Jackson 3

Newcastle survived some intense Saracens pressure on Friday to maintain their winning run at home.

Geoff Parling's try gave them an early lead but Saracens fought back through Paul Gustard and three Glen Jackson penalties.

Saracens' Cencus Johnston's sin-binning allowed Loki Crichton get a try and level up the game at the break.

Two second-half penalties from Crichton and some tough defence allowed Newcastle hang on for the win.

"I'll admit that I was surprised and chuffed to go in 14-14 at half-time. We'd made a good start but they are a good side and they had us under the cosh for most of the half.

"I was reasonably pleased with the way we had played in the first half and I was pretty confident we could go on to win it because we were pressuring them into making mistakes.

"When Rodd Penney scored with 20 seconds left on the clock, I was devastated. I thought the game had been snatched away from us, but all credit to the touch judge for sticking to his guns.

"He said they hadn't taken the line-out from the right place and that the ball had been touched by someone in the crowd, which meant they couldn't take it quickly."

"I wasn't sure what happened at the end there but I'm not in the habit of querying decisions.

"We should have put the game to bed long before that and you have to give Newcastle credit for sticking to their guns with so many players missing.

"We had a game plan and it was to come here and not play sevens rugby because Newcastle can hurt you if you do that.

"We have only ourselves to blame for not putting the game to bed when we had the chances."

Newcastle: Shaw; May, Noon, Mayerhofler, Rudd; Crichton, Dickson; McDonald(capt), Thompson, Ward, Sorenson, Oakes, Parling, Woods, Winter.
Replacements: Golding, Long, Buist, Wilson, Dillon, Grindal, Phillips.

Saracens: Scarbrough; Vaikona, Penney, Sorrell (capt), Ratuvou; Jackson, Dickens; Lloyd, Cairns, Visagie, Ryder, Chesney, Vyvyan, Seymour, Gustard.
Replacements: Byrne, C Johnston, Raiwalui, Skirving, Rauluni, De Vedia, Castaignede.