Newport ran in four tries to cliaim their second home win in the Welsh Premiership as they ended a run of seven styraight defeats at the hands of their old rivals.
Two pitch inspections had to take place before international referee Nigel Williams declared the pitch safe to play and Newport opted to use the wind in the first-half to try to build up a comfortable lead.
It took only six minutes before they earned their first reward when the flanker Jason Forster was rolled over from a line-out to bag the first try. Jason Strange converted and then added the extra points to a try from the lock Mike Voyle midway thorugh the half.
In between, the highly impressive Nicky Robinson scored what turned out to be Cardiff’s only points of the game with a penalty. The Wales A outside half was one player in the visiting ranks who really caught the eye ona night when coach Dai Young oopted to play a team of youngsters in order to protect his main side for Saturday’s Celtic League semi-final at Neath.
Robinson made two searing breaks, pinned Newport back in their territory with his accurate and astute kicking off either foot and always ensured his team moved forward in the tricky conditions. outside him, the debutant Richard Jones also earned his spurs.
But Newport’s pack kept rolling on and Jon Pritchard added a third try just before the break. Strange added the conversion and the home side looked set to break all previous records in the age old fixture.
But it didn’t turn out that way, although the 7,503 strong crowd did see beat their previous highest league score against Cardiff of 23-11 in 1997. Young fired up his young bucks and they gave a decent account of themselves in the second half.
It didn’t help that Newport surrendered a number of great scoring chances, not least when Percy Montgomery raced out of his own 22, kicked ahead and then found his own player, Hal Luscombe, impeding him as he went for the try.
It took Newport 22 minutes before they added to their tally when Steve Ojomoh fed acting skipper Ofisa Tonu’u with a scoring pass from the base of a scrum five. Strange popped over the conversion and the deed had been done.
Scorers: Newport: Tries: J Forster, M Voyle, J Pritchard, O Tonu’u; Conversions: J Strange 4; Penalty: J Strange. Cardiff: Penalty: N Robinson.
Newport: P Montgomery (S Howarth74); H Luscombe, J Pritchard, A Marinos (L Nabaro 41), A Cadwallader; J Strange, O Tonu’u (captain, D Burn 74); C Jones (D Pattison 69), J Richards (P Young 55), A Garvey, I Gough (S Raiwalui 40-45), M Voyle (S Raiwalui 55), G Gravell, J Forster (A Powell 41), S Ojomoh.
Cardiff: L Andrews; A Sullivan, D Van Vuuren, R Jones, D Dewdney; N Robinson, R Powell; J Yapp (Aled Jones 76), G Woods (L Collins 76), D Young (captain, T Payne 67) Adam Jones, L Tait, C Stamatakis (N Hampson 66), R Sowden-Taylor, D McShane.
Referee: N Williams (Bryncoch).
