BRISTOL have given themselves plenty to do if they are to claim their first victory of the new Guinness Premiership season at Newcastle tonight.

Despite taking an early 3-0 lead, Bristol went in 10-3 down at the break against a hard-working Falcons side.

In a match being described by some pundits as an early relegation battle, the home side edged Bristol after a tense but largely uneventful opening 40 minutes.

But there were some signs of encouragement for Bristol, who went into the match on the back of three straight league defeats, with David Lemi and Dan Ward-Smith in particular testing the home defence.

Bristol head coach Richard Hill had made three personnel and two positional switches following the 9-6 home defeat to Sale a week ago.

Luke Arscott moved to inside centre from full-back, with Ed Barnes swapping the No 12 shirt for No 10.

And Vunga Lilo, Roy Winters and Matt Salter were all brought in for their first starts of the season.

Bristol made the brighter start, too, Barnes narrowly missing a long-range penalty in the second minute before kicking his side into a fourth-minute lead.

Barnes' up and under wrong-footed home full-back Steve Jones, and as Newcastle tried to recover they infringed at the ruck, giving Barnes a routine kick to hand his side the lead.

Newcastle hit back, though, with Jonny Wilkinson levelling the score from more than 40 metres after Bristol were penalised for not rolling away from a tackle.

A Lilo knock-on from a Tom Arscott pass then allowed Newcastle to build a platform from which to launch a promising attack, Wilkinson and Jamie Noon combining effectively before Noon's pass to Tim Visser was deemed to have gone forward.

Newcastle did claim the first try of the night – and it was thanks largely to their hard-working forwards rather than Wilkinson's backs.

Prop Joe McDonnell and No 8 Phil Dowson punched holes in the Bristol defence, setting up a ruck from which former Gloucester skipper Adam Balding picked up and crashed over the line.

The try was scored next to the right-hand post, giving Wilkinson a simple conversion to give his side a 10-3 lead.

Newcastle: S Jones; T Visser, J Noon, T May, J Rudd; J Wilkinson, J Grindal; J McDonnell, M Thompson, C Hayman, A Perry, M Sorenson, A Balding, E Williamson, P Dowson (capt). Reps: A Long, M Ward, T Swinson, R Winter, H Charlton, S Davey, R Clegg.

Scorers: Try – Balding. Con – Wilkinson. Pen – Wilkinson.

Bristol: V Lilo; T Arscott, N Brew, L Arscott, D Lemi; E Barnes, G Beveridge; A Clarke, S Linklater, J Hobson, R Winters, N Budgett, M Salter, J El Abd (capt), D Ward-Smith. Reps: M Regan, P Bracken, R Sidoli, A Blowers, H Thomas, C Ashwin, G Barden.

Scorers: Pen – Barnes.

Ref: C White.