Wins are never easy there although Newport will take comfort from the fact that they have won twice on their last three visits.
This season will see experimenting with some trial laws for the Premiership clubs.The try will now be worth six points and all kicks will be two points with a penalty try being eight points with no conversion. The losing bonus point will be for teams losing and within eight points rather than the previous seven.
Newport, after their disastrous last season have a number of new faces on their books but won’t have the services of star full-back and place kicker Geraint O’Driscoll who was seriously injured playing for Crawshays during the close season. He will be out for quite some time but they do have Llywarch Ap Myrddin – one of the finds of last season and new signing Ed Howley who has played before for Newport from Maesteg.
Newport’s proposed starting line-up only shows one new debutant – centre Haydn Palmer who has joined from Newbridge and there are a further two debutants on the bench – prop Tom Piper and outside-half Arwel Robson.
Interestingly the squad has four players who are returning to the club after short breaks with other clubs – Ryan James, John Lavender, Rhodri Jones and Craig Attwell.
Newport: L Ap Myrddin, A Hewitt, H Palmer, B Nightingale, E Frewen, M O’Brien. R James, J Lavender, E Whitson, A Jeffries, Adam Brown (capt), R Jones, R Jenkins, O Griffiths, B Lampitt.
Replacements : W Evans, J Greenfield, T Piper, B Morgan, C Attwell, J Lewis, A Robson, J Morris.
