England centre Jamie Noon sent last season's beaten finalists Llanelli Scarlets crashing to a shock defeat in their EDF Energy Cup pool game at Newcastle Falcons.

Noon grabbed a try in each half and John Rudd added a third late in the game as the Falcons kept alive their hopes of qualifying for the knock-out stages by completing a 25-9 win at Kingston Park.

Newcastle cashed in on a lively opening spell with a ninth minute drop goal from Tom May but Ceiron Thomas slotted a penalty shortly afterwards when Noon strayed offside.

The Falcons opted for penalty in the corner rather than going for goal in 16th minute but although they won the line-out, Llanelli's defensive drive put Newcastle under real pressure and Andy Perry spilled the ball to allow the Scarlets to clear from the scrum.

A careless offside from Joe Shaw gave Thomas another shot at goal but the fly-half was well off target from long range and then a promising pick and drive from Newcastle was spoiled when Micky Ward failed to hang onto the ball.

Referee Chris White gave two successive controversial decisions which had the Newcastle players shaking their heads and from the second Barry Davies kicked a 50 metre goal.

The Falcons had more reason to feel aggrieved when Simon Easterby clearly went over the ball under the Scarlets posts and there was no penalty.

But they did get the put-in at the scrum and Lee Dickson fed Toby Flood for Noon to power through off the fly-half's shoulder for the game's first try which Flood also converted.

Flood made an electric break from his own 22 after shaping to kick and almost got clear but tried to take on Davies when a chip may have worked better and slipped as he tried to step.

Davies then attempted to run it back before being caught in his own 22 and Perry was desperately unlucky to knock on the loose ball with no-one covering the hole at full-back.

Right on half-time, Flood slotted a neat drop goal but it was all down to some hard-nosed driving play from the forwards led by Phil Dowson.

The second half was littered with early mistakes and there were signs the Newcastle pack were beginning to feel the pressure as they were penalised twice in quick succession for dropping the scrum and when Ben Woods was done for not rolling away in the tackle, Thomas cut the lead to 13-9 with the penalty.

The score seemed to spark Newcastle and both Rudd and Anthony Elliott surged up the left flank and when the ball was worked infield Davies could only knock back Andy Long's attempted pass.

Noon scooped up the ball and blasted through for his second try which Flood converted to make it 20-9.

It seemed Dickson had got a third for Newcastle when he was driven over but White decided the scrum-half had already been tackled and penalised him for a double movement.

Newcastle got their third when Brent Wilson broke clear from a lineout in the dying minutes and the Falcons handled brilliantly when he was hauled down for Rudd to score.