Newcastle held off Harlequins to edge an 11-10 victory in their Aviva Premiership clash at a packed Kingston Park.
The Falcons were under the cosh for most of the second half after leading 11-0 at half-time with a Vereniki Goneva try and two Tase Takulua penalties.
But after England full-back Mike Brown scored early in the second half and Marcus Smith converted the momentum was all with Quins and Smith set up a pulsating finish when he landed a 67th-minute penalty to make it 11-10.
Somehow, Newcastle managed to hang on and sent most of the 9,128 crowd home for Christmas happy with a narrow victory.
Newcastle dominated the opening 20 minutes as Sinoti Sinoti and Goneva pummelled the Quins defence with Toby Flood pulling the strings.
Sinoti's pulverising style of abrasive running caused Quins all sorts of problems and given the Falcons amount of possession a half-time lead of 11-0 seemed scant reward.
Nili Latu's deft chip through in the ninth minute brought the first score with Simon Hammersley getting a boot to it before Tim Visser managed to gather and concede a five-metre scrum but when Goneva lost control of the ball, Quins were happy to clear.
Juan Pablo Socino made broke and his back-handed offload to Will Witty looked to have led to a try but the TMO judged the big lock had been held just short but a penalty for offside followed and Takulua took the points.
A try looked inevitable and it came in the 16th minute with Flood finding Sinoti coming off his wing on the loop and he broke the Quins line and floated the ball out to Goneva who shot over for the score.
Takulua missed the conversion but kicked a 25th-minute penalty after Gary Graham was hauled down just short after another barrelling run and Quins strayed offside.
The one real chance to come Quins way came when Brown went past Goneva just inside halfway but the Falcons winger got back to nail Visser near the corner flag and Chris Harris intercepted his inside pass before ending up in touch and Newcastle completed their escape when Quins knocked on at the lineout.
Newcastle's lead was reduced within four minutes of the restart with a determined Quins response which saw James Chisholm and Alofa Alofa smash through and the ball was swiftly moved out to Brown for a simple try converted by Smith to make it 11-7 in the 44th minute.
It was all Quins as it had been all Newcastle in the first half and the Falcons simply could not get their hands on the ball and when they did they turned it over far too often, but then so didn't Quins as the half wore on and Newcastle lost a potent weapon when Sinoti was forced to leave the field after a clash of heads.
Newcastle were under pressure in the scrum and Quins pinned them on their own line to extract a penalty for offside and Smith kicked a 67th-minute penalty to make it 11-10 in an increasingly niggly match.
The closing quarter saw Quins constantly on the attack but Newcastle's defence was exemplary.