He was sent on before the match was a quarter over, just seconds after the Scarlets had scored their first try. He replaced Toby Flood, who had had the misfortune to allow Regan King to run through him to set up the full-back Lee Byrne for a try.The Scarlets' forwards dominated, with the hooker Aled Gravelle having a fine match and scoring his team's second try. Their line-out stood up well to the aggressive Falcons pack, their driving maul was magnificent and their captain, Simon Easterby, was superb in the loose and on the ground.Llanelli still found themselves being pushed and pulled all over the place every time Wilkinson got the ball, but his place-kicking was a little out of kilter - no surprise since he had come on to the field with just 60 minutes of rugby under his belt this season.He missed his first kick five minutes after coming on and there was a second failure early in the second half. But his fitness could not be doubted, and nor could his hardness.He did plenty of other things right, including setting up those tries. For the first his delicate crossfield chip allowed the wing Anthony Elliott to gather on the full before racing in untouched; the second saw him deliver a glorious miss-pass to open up a gaping hole which was exploited by Tom May.Wilkinson's conversion, his second of the match, dragged Newcastle clear by a point.

But it was not enough.Llanelli Scarlets: Tries Byrne, Gravelle, Hercus; Conversions Hercus 2; Penalty Bowen. Newcastle: Tries Elliott, May; Conversions Wilkinson 2; Penalties Burke, Wilkinson.Llanelli Scarlets: L Byrne; M Jones, D James, R King, T Selley; M Hercus (G Bowen, 67), C Stuart-Smith; I Thomas, A Gravelle (M Rees, 75), J Davies, I Afeaki (C Wyatt, 79), A Jones, S Easterby (capt), J Mills, A Popham.Newcastle: M Burke; T May, M Tait, M Mayerhofler, A Elliott; T Flood (J Wilkinson, 18), H Charlton; G Anderson (M Ward, 40), M Thompson (A Long, 40), T Paoletti (R Morris, 40), A Perry (L Gross, 72), G Parling, O Finegan, C Harris, C Charvis (capt).Referee: N Whitehouse (Wales).. Keith Barwell, the chairman and financier-in-chief of Northampton RFC, was in a "Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)" kind of mood, which was more than could be said for the Welsh visitors to Franklin's Gardens, who do not have a financier of any description these days and seemed equally poverty-stricken in the art and science of wet-weather rugby. While Barwell was ranting away in print, the Dragons were fumbling away on the paddock.

Neither seemed to be having much fun, and only one was making an impact. Had the contest lived up to Barwell's tone-setting explosions in the match programme and the local evening paper, both of which recorded his barely repeatable impressions of the recent behaviour of the Rugby Football Union, the 10,000-plus crowd would have witnessed enough mayhem to last them several lifetimes. As it was, the game was over in the time it took Carlos Spencer to make mincemeat of the hapless Dragons full-back Sione Tuipulotu and sundry colleagues with a series of precision "bombs" launched from his right boot. The first, propelled high into a windswept Midlands sky, was fumbled by Tuipulotu and resulted in an easy three points for Bruce Reihana. The second put Gareth Wyatt in trouble and Sean Lamont claimed a try in the right corner. Sure enough, Spencer banged up another one; sure enough, it bisected the advancing Wyatt and the retreating Michael Owen and gave the Saints the attacking platform.