COMMENTARY : Newcastle's age problem

It says something for Newcastle's sense of sporting priorities that even those who prefer Kingston Park to the St James' version are more deeply in love with Les Ferdinand than with Va'aiga Tuigamala. When rugby's first million-pound signing was introduced to a capacity Pilkington Cup crowd on Saturday, his new public greeted him with a polite handshake rather than a warm embrace. It was only when Les put the Magpies one up at Middlesbrough that the earth moved for the Geordies.

Inga will win over his fair share of converts, of course - five grand a week suggests he has a missionary role to play in the north-east outpost as well as a midfield one - but if Sir John Hall expects his All Black investment to pay instant dividends, he may well be disappointed. The faithful cheque book will have to come out yet again if Newcastle are to hit Europe in 1998, as they have repeatedly and, probably unwisely, promised.

The stark fact underlying their 18-8 defeat by Leicester in the cup quarter- final comprehensively wrecked as a spectacle by Typhoon Tyne was that three, perhaps four, key players looked close to the end of the road. Rob Andrew, Gary Armstrong, Nick Popplewell and Dean Ryan are all the wrong side of 30; elder statesmen in a young man's game, they are experiencing the law of diminishing returns at first hand.

Which is not to say they will not carry their side to promotion or make a decent fist of it in the top flight next season, fist being the operative word in Ryan's case. But none of the four could conceivably pretend, either to themselves or anyone else, that they are the players they were and if Sir John thinks the Heineken Cup is any place for a has-been, he possesses more millions than brain cells.

Andrew's peculiarly impetuous display summed up the dilemma now facing Newcastle. There was no shortage of desire; quite the opposite, in fact, for he spent most of the match either hitting rucks like a lock or fighting with Neil Back. All very impressive, except that he was not put on this earth to hit rucks or fight with flankers. When it came to shepherding his side, working the touchlines with the gale at his back and establishing the right sort of platform for his feisty, fisty forwards, the old magic was nowhere to be seen.

On the other side the contrast was absolute. Joel Stransky performed the duties he was employed to perform so beautifully that Leicester, unusually underbaked up front for the first 40 and a mere six points ahead as they turned to face the elements, seldom looked like being punished for their shortcomings. "I wasn't too happy at the break because I felt we'd played very poorly," Bob Dwyer, the Tigers coach, said. "Having said that, I wasn't in the least anxious. Joel is a thinker, a great reader of the game. I was confident he would get us there."

If Dwyer was taken with Stransky's contribution - and he had every justification, especially when the South African potted an astonishing 40-metre penalty into the teeth of the wind seven minutes into the second half to break the home effort once and for all - he was very definitely under the moon on the subject of Ryan. "I can't understand for the life of me how a club captain and a good player can throw so many cheap shots," he said. "You tell me he didn't pick up a yellow card? I can't believe it. He should buy himself a lottery ticket while his luck's in."

But his luck wasn't in. That was the point. Ryan, conspicuously unangelic throughout his career, gave everything he had, legal and illegal, and still finished a distant second best to Will Johnson, Leicester's third- choice No 8 behind Eric Miller and Dean Richards. It was a sure sign of decline, especially as Johnson caused most of his damage with simple charges from the base of the set-piece. Ryan knew full well where his opponent was coming from, yet seemed powerless to respond.

Popplewell's early departure with hamstring trouble not only renewed suspicions over his physical resilience but threw the Newcastle front row into turmoil. George Graham's switch to loose-head was not a success and the Tigers, more than comfortable in the tight, were able to compensate for their problems at the line-out, where Doddie Weir gave Martin Johnson all the trouble he could handle. "Nick's going off clearly affected us," Andrew admitted. "We just couldn't establish ourselves in their 22, even though we had the wind in the second half."

By the time Pat Lam, the Western Samoan captain, marked his cup debut with a try in the right corner three minutes from the end, Leicester were out of sight. Stransky, cute enough to vary his tactical kicking to suit the moment and unerring in his judgement with ball in hand, had made quite sure of that. "He kicked superbly, especially into the wind," Andrew said.

The worry for Newcastle is that having caught Leicester at their most vulnerable, they came away with nothing. Andrew may have described his side's cup run as a "pleasant diversion", but he knew as well as anyone that the hullabaloo surrounding Saturday's occasion elevated it into a genuine test of credibility.

Newcastle's failure was far from hopeless, but it was a failure all the same. If Sir John's first generation revolutionaries are going to leave a real mark on English rugby, they had better get a move on. They do not have much time left.

Newcastle: Try Lam; Penalty Andrew. Leicester: Penalties Stransky 6.

Newcastle: T Stimpson; J Bentley, A Tait, G Childs (M Tetlow, 6), T Underwood; R Andrew, G Armstrong; N Popplewell (P Van Zandvliet, 35), R Nesdale, G Graham, G Archer, G Weir, P Lam, D Ryan (capt), R Arnold.

Leicester: J Liley; S Hackney, C Joiner, W Greenwood, L Lloyd; J Stransky, A Healey; G Rowntree, R Cockerill, D Garforth, M Johnson, M Poole, J Wells, W Johnson, N Back.

Referee: E Morrison (Bristol).