NEWPORT County AFC captain Joss Labadie is a doubt for the start of the League Two season as he continues to recover from a wrist injury.

Labadie had an operation at the end of May and is still wearing a cast on his left arm that has so far prevented him from playing in County’s pre-season matches.

The midfielder was a spectator at Chippenham Town last night as the Exiles won 2-1 and coach Wayne Hatswell revealed that Labadie is unlikely to be able to play until August.

The last scheduled pre-season friendly is at Northampton Town on July 29.

County have arranged a behind-closed doors match against a Swansea City XI at Spytty Park in the week leading up to the big kick-off at Stevenage on August 5 It is hoped that Labadie will be able to feature in that match to give him a chance of playing at the Lamex Stadium.

“We just want to get Labs on the pitch,” said Hatswell, who put Labadie through his paces before kick-off at Chippenham.

“It’s hard replicating what he’s missing at the moment.

“He’s got a cast on and we have to bow to the doctors on that one and obviously the welfare of Labs is the most important thing.

“We don’t want a situation where he makes it worse.

“He’s been important for us,” he added.

“He’s first class in training and he’s having to work hard on his own, which is not the nicest thing to do.

“But he’s a tough character and we’re just trying to keep him ticking over so we can try to get a game into him before the start of the season.

“I think he’s seeing a specialist to get a new splint the day after the Northampton game and that should give him the all-clear.

“We’re trying to get him to play against Swansea at Spytty. Hopefully he can play in that and we can get him a bit of game-time.

“And that will hopefully mean he’ll be available for the first day of the season but we’ve got to realise that he’s not played.”

Meanwhile, County have announced the squad numbers for the 2017-2018 campaign.

They are as follows:

1 - Joe Day

2 - David Pipe

3 - Dan Butler

4 - Joss Labadie

7 - Robbie Willmott

8 - Matty Dolan

10 - Frank Nouble

11 - Lamar Reynolds

12 - Ben Tozer

13 - Marlon Jackson

14 - Jazzi Barnum-Bobb

16 - Jamie Turley

17 - Scot Bennett

19 - Aaron Williams

20 - Tom Owen-Evans

25 - Mark O'Brien

28 - Mickey Demetriou

30 - James Bittner