Touch wood - and Lions followers will turn into tree huggers in the coming weeks - Jonny Wilkinson will be flying to New Zealand later this month. London Irish may not have wanted to smooth the way back for the fly-half who began his first game for six weeks, but conceding three kickable penalties in the last 10 minutes was pretty generous in the circumstances.

The sight of that left boot finding its target and of Wilkinson enjoying a fully committed 80 minutes following his knee injury at Harlequins in March was reassuring too for Newcastle, for whom their talisman contributed 18 points and a major part in his side's only try.

Andy Robinson, one of the Lions coaches in New Zealand, confirmed yesterday that Wilkinson will need to prove his fitness in the remainder of Newcastle's season. Sir Clive Woodward will talk to the player whom the head coach will add to his squad if he is convinced he has recovered from his depressing litany of injuries.

But Wilkinson may have two more matches to prove himself. Newcastle travel to Gloucester on Sunday in a wild-card semi-final they hope will be a route to the Heineken Cup. There was an overwhelming feeling of relief on Saturday that recent miseries were over and that the chief threat to Wilkinson's well-being was repetitive strain injury caused by the demands of the autograph hunters.

But Wilkinson was far from perfect. He missed touch too many times and the All Blacks will be far more ruthless in exploiting loose kicks. But from the moment he stopped Roland Reid making too much progress when the Irish No8 peeled off from the back of an early scrum, Wilkinson was as involved as ever in the blood and thunder of a fraught match.

"Jonny needs more games, which is why we are desperately keen to get to a Twickenham final," said Newcastle's director of rugby Rob Andrew. "His goalkicking was good and his contribution was colossal."

Andrew had two other backs, Matt Burke and Mathew Tait, returning and both made telling contributions. The Australian full-back Burke was man of the match, fearless under the high ball and displaying touches of class all over the pitch. He prevented a first-half try when he burrowed under Michael Horak as his opposite number split open the home defence.

Irish could have stretched their lead to 11 points then and actually crossed the line three times in the first half, but Nils Mordt was also held up over the line by Colin Charvis and Delon Armitage's sixth-minute try was a rare cause for Irish celebration.

Burke's try just before the interval turned the course of the game. Luke Gross drove forward and quick ball was transferred to Wilkinson who found Burke on his right shoulder. A well-timed pass and Burke powered over. After the break only the boots of Wilkinson and Barry Everitt kept the scoreboard moving.

Newcastle will soon be strengthened by the arrival of the Wallaby back-rower Owen Finegan, and two of their big-hitting Polynesian forwards Epi Taione and Semo Sititi are set to move to Sale and the Borders.

The Exiles had arrived facing a mathematical, if unlikely, threat of relegation. They returned home with only a point in a defeat that robs them of a wild-card place.

It was a particularly painful afternoon for their replacement Mark Mapletoft. He had been on the field for barely a minute when he reeled over in agony after fracturing his elbow in stopping a charge by Mark Mayerhofler.

Newcastle Falcons: Burke; May, Noon, Mayerhofler, Tait; Wilkinson, Charlton (Grindal, 60); Alvarez Quinones (Ward, 62), Thompson (Long, 40), Ward (Wilson, 34), Gross (Parling, 71), Grimes, Charvis (capt), Harris, Dowson.

Try: Burke. Pens: Wilkinson 6.

London Irish: Horak; Staniforth, Appleford, Mordt (Mapletoft, 69; Murphy, 70), Armitage; Everitt, Hodgson; Hatley, Flavin, Hardwick, Strudwick (capt), Casey, Gustard (Roche, 31), Dawson, Reid.

Try: Armitage. Con: Everitt. Pens: Everitt 3.

Referee: R Maybank (London).

Att: 9,328.