WHEN it was confirmed last month that the All Blacks would be coming to Darlington for six days during next year’s Rugby World Cup, the decision was immediately hailed as a major boost for North-East rugby.

The presence of the reigning world champions at The Northern Echo Arena, with the potential for an opening training session and an opportunity for meet-and-greet sessions with local schoolchildren, is a huge shot-in-the-arm for grassroots rugby in a region that is all-too-often portrayed as exclusively obsessed with football.

Yet it shouldn’t be forgotten that we are talking about six days, as well as the staging of three pool matches at St James’ Park in Newcastle. It’s a welcome development, certainly. But it’s not going to guarantee the continued growth and development of North-East rugby in its own right.

For that, we must look towards Newcastle Falcons, the region’s only fully-professional rugby club and therefore the standard bearers for the game in this part of the world.

In terms of attracting North-East youngsters to rugby and ensuring there is a pathway that leads them all the way to the pinnacle of the international game, the single most important factor is the presence of an Aviva Premiership club in the region.

So when director of rugby, Dean Richards, leads Falcons into their opening game of the new top-flight season at Leicester Tigers this afternoon, he will do so with the fate of North-East rugby at least partly in his hands.

“In a lot of respects, we’re here as the figureheads of rugby in the North-East, and we’re fully aware of what that means,” said Richards, who has readily embraced life in the region since taking over the reins at Kingston Park two-and-a-half years ago.

“If you go to Tynedale or Blaydon, then you’ll see boys that we send down to those clubs to help with their progression. They’re spreading the word of what we’re about, and I think the perception within the rugby world is that we’re a club representing the North-East.

“If (Darlington) Mowden (Park) and Leeds got their act together, then with Sale as well, maybe we could have four clubs in the north of England in the Premiership. The more you have, the better, but at the moment, we’re proud of what we’re doing and we’re proud to be the shining light in the far north.

“The World Cup is important, but we’re out there in the community every day getting youngsters into rugby and that’s crucial.”

Falcons do not have to be in the top-flight to provide opportunities and inspiration to promising North-East youngsters of course, and the club successfully bounced back when it was relegated to the Championship for a season a couple of years ago.

But there is no doubt that being in the Premiership affords Falcons a status and financial base that is crucial to their continued development, and after last season finished with the club just one place above the relegation zone, there is a determination that the new campaign will be nowhere near as fraught.

That could be easier said than done given that an average attendance of fewer than 10,000 means Falcons’ budget is significantly inferior to that of almost all of the club’s Premiership rivals. In terms of financial muscle, today’s opening-day opponents, Leicester, are on a completely different plain.

But having brought in ten new players this summer, a tally that includes Italy international Josh Furno, last season’s top scorer in the Championship, Juan Pablo Socino, and brothers Alesana and Anitelea Tuilagi, Richards is confident his side can confound the pundits who have been lining up to tip them for relegation.

“The squad is certainly stronger than it was, and as a team, we just want to climb up that table,” he said. “You look at the predictions in the papers, and a lot of people have put us at 12th. That’s fine by me. I’ve never known one of those predictions to be correct yet, so we obviously won’t be finishing 12th!

“I’m confident we’ll get higher than that, and I don’t think it’ll be a great bet if someone puts us down as 11th either. I’m pretty sure we’ll be better than 11th at the end of the year.”

As well as recruiting a host of new players, Falcons have also laid a new artificial playing surface at Kingston Park this summer, a move Richards feels will have a major effect in terms of enabling his squad to adopt a more expansive style.

“It should make a massive difference in terms of getting a consistent surface to play on week in, week out,” he said. “Last year, if it was dry for three weeks leading up to the game, we could just about produce a surface the boys could be happy on, albeit with a couple of areas that were still a bit of a bog.

“But if it rained in the week leading up to a game, you were looking at patches all over the pitch and it would be like running on quicksand. When the boys were doing their team run on the pitch the day before a game, they were coming in demoralised because they knew what they were up against. It’s the consistency that’ll give a huge lift to the players.”