The Blue and Blacks struck first with former Wales under 20s centre Harri Millard slicing open the Newport defence to score, with Jack Maynard adding the extras. But Newport hit back immediately with Wales Sevens speedster Ben Roach showing great footwork to score, with Reed converting.
The lead constantly changed hands throughout this tense affair with Jake Thomas putting Cardiff back ahead as he powered over from short range, while teenage wing Oli Andrew showed terrific pace to cross for the Black and Ambers.
Dan Fish and Reed kicked their respective conversions meaning the scores were level at 14-14 at the interval. The second-half was a cagier affair which was dominated by the boot. Cardiff’s Maynard and Dragons full back Ioan Evans both kicked long range penalties.
But with a mere five minutes left to play up stepped Dragons academy outside-half Reed to nudge Newport ahead, and ultimately get the Black and Ambers up and running in the Premiership Cup’s eastern conference. Ebbw Vale continued their impressive start to the season with a hard-fought 16-6 victory over Pontypridd at Eugene Cross-Park.
There wasn’t much entertainment on show in at Eugene Cross-Park but Ebbw Vale won’t care as they built on their stunning win over Merthyr with another strong performance against a Premiership big hitter. The only try of the game was scored by the Steelmen’s Dominic Franchi who powered over from short range with Lewis Williams kicking the rest of their points.
Merthyr bounced back from their shock defeat to Ebbw Vale with a hard-fought 37-29 bonus point win over RGC. Callum Bradbury scored the games opening try for Merthyr as he powered over from short range for the Ironmen. But RGC played their part in an enthralling contest when Tom Hughes touched down at the far left-hand corner after some nice handling from the visiting backs, but Ashley Norton hit straight back for Merthyr.
But RGC replied on the stroke of half-time with Dan Owen touching down. Merthyr’s pack turned the screw in the second-half and were awarded a penalty try due to their scrum dominance. Hughes then grabbed his second try for the visitors after gathering a grubber kick and beating two Merthyr defenders to touch down.
RGC then claimed a try bonus point when Harri Evans snipped around the fringes to score. But Merthyr’s power proved too much for RGC to handle as Alex Webber and Ewan Skuse scored late tries to seal the win.
