Caerphilly 20, Newport 46

NEWPORT got their show back on the road and at the same time laid out their title challenge with this convincing performance at Virginia Park on Saturday night.

Caerphilly may be bottom of the table without a league win, but under new coaching trio Terry Holmes, Tony Faulkner and Mark Ring they are no pushovers.

They led 3-0 and then pulled back to 10-10 with a gritty performance, but there could be no disputing Newport's overall superiority and they rammed it home with seven tries.

They made light of the freezing conditions to warm the hearts of the hardy souls who made the effort to leave their television sets.

The pack, in particular, made light of both the weather and a hefty Caerphilly eight with a fair amount of experience in it.

Chris Anthony took his chance in the absence of Adrian Garvey in a superb Newport effort up front.

Newport had Caerphilly in all sorts of trouble in the scrums while Mike Voyle soared above everyone in the line-outs.

And skipper Simon Raiwalui, pictured, and Peter Buxton both had huge games.

One neat improvisation saw Raiwalui positioned in the centre at a close-in scrum ready to take a flat ball at pace from scrum half Dale Burn, with Buxton moving up to lock and wing Matt Mostyn joining the scrum as flanker.

That move yielded Newport's fifth try almost on the interval, the only one by a forward, when Anthony plunged over.

Ring called Newport's pack the best in Wales after this performance, and players of the calibre of Rod Snow, Garvey, Ian Gough and Andrew Powell didn't even make the starting line-up.

Well though Burn played, always dangerous with his quickly taken tap penalties, Ofisa Tonu'u, back from New Zealand 24 hours earlier, brought another dimension to the game with his immediate booming passes and sheer strength.

And Shane Howarth, slow to settle after a nasty thumb injury, found his touch as he controlled affairs, scored a try himself after lancing runs from Ben Breeze and Matt Mostyn, and kicked four conversions and a penalty to pass 100 league points for the season.

Mostyn was a threat coming off his wing and was rewarded with two tries, while Matthew Watkins revelled in his outside centre role until forced off with a thigh injury.

He raced across for two tries as well, the first from a Buxton burst and a Howarth diagonal kick, and the second, the best of the match, off a short pass from Howarth and a lightning run.

Co-centre Jonathan Pritchard also made it to the line after taking a flat pass from Burn and careering over.

It all meant Newport put the successive defeats at the hands of Leinster - who proved their highest quality by beating Irish rivals Munster with 14 men to take the Celtic League trophy - and Llanelli behind them to move smoothly into second place in the Welsh/Scottish League table.

But Caerphilly had their moments, with outside half Luke Richards his usual box of tricks and Tongan pair Sione Tuipolotu and Holo Taufahema a threat.

They took advantage of mistakes by Howarth and Burn for Taufahema and Richards to score tries.

And if a Nathan Jones effort had been allowed and Burn had not just scragged Geraint Lewis moments later, it could have been quite tricky for Newport.