Newcastle Falcons have named their team for Sunday’s Premiership Rugby Cup home game against Doncaster Knights.

Scrum-half James Elliott (pictured) makes his first appearance of the season in the 3pm kick-off at Kingston Park – half-back Brett Connon captaining the side as Newcastle look to build on last weekend’s 33-12 victory at Caldy.

Connor Doherty returns at outside centre in a move which sees Oli Spencer shifted out to the wing, with Ollie Fletcher coming in at hooker, while there could be a debut for back-rower Reuben Parsons with the 19-year-old Cumbrian named among the replacements.

Director of rugby Steve Diamond said: “Doncaster have had some close defeats in the Championship and we’re not paying too much attention to their league position, because they’re a well-coached side with a lot of good players.

“I know their coach Joe Ford well, they’ve got a really passionate owner in Steve Lloyd and we’ll be taking them seriously. I’ve put out a strong side because I want to respect this competition and ultimately win the trophy, and we need to perform at home.

“Doncaster play a pretty wide and loose game with plenty of offloads, so we’ve got to target the ball with double hits. The main thing though is just working on our own basics. We’ve set the players some goals around that, and it’s very clear for everyone what we need to do.”

Looking to kick on from last weekend’s away win, Diamond said: “You’ve got to give credit to Caldy because they’re a good hard-working team who are in a bit of a false position in the Championship, and they put up a good fight.

“It’s kind of a no-win scenario as the Premiership team in those sorts of games because people are expecting you to have a comfortable victory, but you’ve always got to work for these things. In the end it was a good run-out, we tried some different combinations and it was probably a fair score-line. We could have scored three or four more tries, but that’s the work-on for Sunday against Doncaster.”

Keen to utilise the Kingston Park factor, the Falcons boss added: “This is the time of the season where we need to be hitting form, because we’ve got a long run of primarily home games.

“After this weekend we have Sale at home in the cup then Saracens at home in the league, we’re chartering a plane to Pau so the travel will be easier for our game in France and then we’ve got back-to-back home games against Dragons and Bath. Even after Christmas we have Northampton away then Harlequins at home, so when you look at that block as a whole it’s a massive opportunity for us.

“Sunday is really important in setting the tone, and it’s important to put on a show for our supporters. All the squad and staff will be going over to the concourse bar after the game to spend an hour or two with the fans, and it’d be much better doing it off the back of a win!”

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Newcastle Falcons team v Doncaster Knights (Sunday, 3pm, Kingston Park)

15 Ethan Grayson, 14 Alex Hearle, 13 Connor Doherty, 12 Cameron Hutchison, 11 Oli Spencer, 10 Brett Connon (captain), 9 James Elliott; 1 Murray McCallum, 2 Ollie Fletcher, 3 Richard Palframan, 4 Sebastian de Chaves, 5 Kiran McDonald, 6 Philip van der Walt, 7 Ollie Leatherbarrow, 8 Freddie Lockwood.

Replacements: 16 Bryan Byrne, 17 Mike Rewcastle, 18 Callum Hancock, 19 John Kelly, 20 Reuben Parsons, 21 Max Pepper, 22 Ben Stevenson, 23 Nathan Greenwood.

Doncaster Knights: 15 Telusa Veainu, 14 Zach Kerr, 13 George Wacokecoke, 12 Connor Edwards, 11 Jordan Olowofela, 10 Russell Bennett, 9 Ollie Fox; 1 Andrew Turner, 2 Fred Davies, 3 Joe Jones, 4 Josh Williams, 5 Taniela Ramasibana, 6 Thom Smith, 7 Tom Currie, 8 Morgan Strong (captain).

Replacements: 16 George Roberts, 17 Jasper McGuire, 18 Lewis Thiede, 19 Euan McVie, 20 Rhys Tait, 21 Alex Dolly, 22 Morgan Bunting, 23 Maliq Holden.

Referee: Joe James.