Second row Brown, now 32, made the last of his 147 appearances for the club in 2018 before leaving to concentrate on his work as a physiotherapist. But with back five forwards Josh Skinner, Garin Price and Dan Partridge among a lengthy list of injured players he has agreed to provide back up for the remainder of the season.
He will be among the replacements for tonight’s home clash with Swansea, while last weekend another former player, Rhodri Jones, turned out in the win over Ebbw Vale. He has also agreed to help out until the injury list improves.
The 20-3 Gwent derby win over Ebbw Vale eased Newport’s relegation fears and, with two home games in a row, they now have the chance to get away from the danger zone. Newport powered their way to victory on a difficult Rodney Parade pitch and scored three tries.
Rhys Jones, back at Ebbw from Merthyr, opened the scoring with a penalty, but that was as good as it got for the visitors. Jonny Morris went over in the corner for the first try and Matt O’Brien’s conversion and penalty made it 10-3 to the home side at the break.
Harri Lang then ran onto a kick ahead by O’Brien to increase the home lead. Geraint O’Driscoll grabbed the third try to complete an important win for the Black & Ambers.
Newport currently sit in eighth place, 11 points clear of bottom-of-the-table Bridgend with three games in hand. Tonight’s visitors, Swansea, are also in the bottom half of the table, two places and four points behind their hosts. They also have lots of games in hand on the Ravens, but have yet to play a Premiership match this year.
When Swansea hosted the Black & Ambers at St Helen’s on 19 October, Swansea came out on top 31-28 in an eight try thriller.
Llanelli’s steady march out of the relegation zone continued last weekend when they picked up a 24-21 home win over regional rivals Llandovery. The Drovers went 17 points behind at Parc Y Scarlets, yet managed to claw their way into the lead with 10 minutes to go.
Paul Fisher’s side are now nine points clear of bottom of the table Bridgend and six ahead of the Steelmen, with games in hand on both clubs.
Adding insult to injury for the Drovers, they had two players sent off in a feisty contest. Lock Rhys Jones was sent packing for a punch in the 50th minute and Richard Brooks departed following a melee at the last scrum of the game and after the referee had blown for the end of the match.
Llanelli’s last win over the Drovers had been in January, 2017, and they had to dig deep to get back to winning ways. Having raced into a 17 point lead in the first half, the home side found themselves trailing 21-17 with five minutes to go.
“We got a good start and could have been even further in the lead. We knew Llandovery would come back at us, but we kept on playing and found a way to win in the end,” said a delighted Llanelli head coach, Paul Fisher.
“We’ve got eight games left, five of which are at home, and now we are nine points clear of Bridgend at the bottom. We go to them next week and that will be a massive game for both of us.”
Craig Thomas gave Llanelli the perfect start with a try after 12 minutes and Ioan Hughes converted and added a penalty to make it 10-0 midway through the first half. Llandovery then lost No 8 Joe Powell to the sin bin and scrum half Ifan Beynon-Thomas scampered over for a second try that Hughes improved to increase the Llanelli lead to 17 points.
Llandovery used their driving maul to pick up a penalty try just before the break and cut the gap to three points four minutes after they were reduced to 14 men. Wing Aaron Warren crossed and Maynard kicked the conversion.
Then came the try from front row man, Berian Watkins, which Maynard again converted and it looked as though Llandovery were going to perform a great escape. But Llanelli kept on playing and finally made their extra man pay dividends as they worked replacement wing Eray Wilson over for the winning score.
TEAMS FOR TONIGHT AT RODNEY PARADE
Newport: Geraint O’Driscoll; Harri Lang, Jon Morris, Tom Pascoe, Elliot Frewen; Matt O’Brien, Geraint Watkin; Lewis Smout, Matt Dwyer, Louis Jones, Andrew Mann, Joe Bartlett, Morgan Burgess, Kyle Tayler, Rhys Jenkins (captain)
Reps: Henry Palmer, Dan Preece, Garin Harris, Adam Brown, Harry Oliver, Dan Babos, Haydn Simons, Ryan Gardner
Swansea: Phil Jones; Ryan Griffiths, Callum Carson, Jack Evans, Ben Cambriani; James Davies, Matthew Aubrey; Tom Sloane, Shawn Howard, Greg Cunniffe, Shaun O’Rourke, Matt Dodd, Jay Williams, Charlie Davies, Jon Fox (captain)
Reps: Matt Moore, Rhys Davies, Jordan Pritchard, Ben Asprea, Duane Eager, Chris Morgans, Stef Williams, Gareth Rees
