Rugby: Winning run continues for ex-Bay coach
The startling run of former Hawke's Bay Magpies coach Peter Russell's Newcastle Falcons in English rugby continued with a record-breaking 93-0 win over Welsh club Newport during the weekend.
The 15-tries-to-none home British and Irish Cup pool match win extended the Falcons' unbeaten record in the 2012-2013 season to 15.
Coming just a week after a much closer 26-10 win in the club's first-leg match in Wales, it was a record defeat for Newport, the club which inflicted the All Blacks' only defeat in a 36-match tour of the UK in 1963-64.
Relegated from the English Premiership last May and appointing Russell as head coach and former England and British Lions No8 Dean Richards as director of rugby, Newcastle finished the 11-match first round of this year's England championship grade 12 points clear of their nearest rivals.
The weekend's win guaranteed them a place in the British and Irish Cup quarter-finals, after just four of the six matches in pool play.
They complete their pre-Christmas schedule with a home match starting the championship second round this weekend against ninth-placed London Scottish, whom they beat 49-32 in the first round.
