Hudson has made nine appearances this season

Newcastle Falcons lock James Hudson has played down talk that Friday's European Challenge Cup pool five game against Petrarca will be a formality.

The Italians are bottom of the pool, with just a bonus point against Falcons to show from their five matches but Hudson believes they pose a threat.

"It's the easiest trap to fall into," he told BBC Newcastle.

"They've got some threats in that time - we have to play with confidence and concentrate on ourselves."

Falcons have reached the quarter-finals for four seasons running, reaching the semi-finals on two of those occasions.

Winning with a bonus point would also ensure that their opponents would be made to visit Kingston Park, and the former London Irish forward admitted that is the key aim for the players ahead of Friday's game.

"We have to approach the game to win the game," he said. "But the big carrot is the home quarter-final against one of the Heineken Cup teams, so to ensure that we do that we need to score four tries.

"We want to adopt the attitude of winning the game, but as well we want to try to play some rugby as well and put in a performance, because that's what we need to build towards."

Falcons lead pool five by two points from French side Montauban with four wins and one defeat from five games.

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