The Steelmen successfully held onto their Premiership status last season despite losing a number of players last summer after being forced to trip their budgets and head coach Greg Woods is looking to build on the last campaign when rugby returns.
Hooker Joel Franchi has been handed the captain’s armband following the departure to Pontypool of Ashley Sweet and he will be backed up by Mikhail Blake in the middle of the front row. Either side of them there will be plenty of options following the successful signing of a battery of prop stars.
At the top end o the experience scale will be Ross Jones and Rob Sevenoaks, both of who are within touching distance of 250 games for the club. Sevenoaks, twice named the club’s ‘Man of Steel’, has signed on for an 11th season and will celebrate his 38th birthday in September, while Jones is already 39.
Former Worcester RFC tight head Dave Whiting offers huge potential at No 3, as does the fit-again former Brynmawr star, Ellis Evans. Meanwhile, on the other side of the scrum, loose heads Joel Harries and Luke Garrett will battle it out for the No 1 jersey.
Harries is coming into his fourth season at the club and is finally fit after two injury-ravaged campaigns. Former Dragons and Wales U20 star Garrett, who joined from Neath in 2018, has proved himself to be one of the strongest scrummagers in the Premiership.
