NEWPORT threw away a golden opportunity of gaining their first victory over Cardiff at the Arms Park for six years with a sub-standard performance last night.

Instead of building on their victory against Caerphilly, faults which appeared in that game were magnified.

Yet Cardiff were so below strength that they almost had to beg, steal and borrow to field a team. They were without 10 regulars, including British Lions Rob Howley, Neil Jenkins, David Young and Martyn Williams.

They had a teenager at outside half in Nick Robinson, who turned out to be the man of the match, run pretty close by flanker Jim Brownrigg, drafted in short term from Bristol.

He used his height to great effect to make an extra line-out jumper, an area which he and acting captain John Tait dominated.

Newport were awful in the line-out, and already they are missing the imposing presence of Gary Teichmann.

Maybe it wasn't a good idea of Rod Snow to joke about Paul Young's throwing-in in Saturday's Caerphilly programme because it wasn't a laughing matter last night.

Time and again Newport lost their own line-out ball or it went nowhere.

That made it difficult for half backs Dale Burn and Shane Howarth but, even so, where they were effective against Caerphilly, they struggled against Cardiff.

Burn chose wrong options, knocked on at crucial times and took too long to get the ball away, while Howarth missed two easy penalty shots and kicked poorly.

Yet 19-year-old Robinson looked a real prospect for Cardiff at outside half, scoring a glorious try after a double dummy fooled the Newport defence, and kicking two conversions and two penalties.

Matt Allen, a new recruit from Northampton, grabbed Cardiff's other try, co-centre Peter Muller proving a controlling influence as he became the first of Cardiff's injury victims to return.

Greg Kacala, brought back from Poland to help out, was inspirational as Cardiff generally controlled the game, penalty ridden though it was, as English Test referee Steve Lander awarded a massive 31 penalties.

Newport at least matched Cardiff in tries, Andy Marinos taking advantage of them being down to 14 men when former Newport and Wales prop Peter Rogers was sinbinned for foul play.

And with just seven minutes left, Snow, who at times seemed to be playing Cardiff single handed, made another death or glory burst.

Jason Strange, who had replaced Howarth, moved the ball, Marinos flipped it on and Matt Pini was up to grab the try.

Strange converted off the touchline, but despite a last- gasp effort by Newport, it was too late.

Maybe the replacements should have gone on earlier because it was certainly a game to forget for Newport.

A big wake-up call it certainly was, and it'll be interesting to see where they go from here.

Meanwhile, Bridgend, 10-9 down at half-time, hit back strongly in the second half with five tries to demolish Glasgow 50-15 in the Celtic League last night.

Cerith Rees converted all five and kicked five penalties for a personal contribution of 25 points.

A magnificent break out of defence by Welsh international Gareth Thomas was a feature of the opening stages.

Glasgow were penalised and Rees opened the scoring with a penalty, following up with a second later.

James Craig took advantage of some shadow tackling to score the first try of the match for Glasgow. Barry Irving converted to put the Scotsmen into the lead and added a penalty to cancel out a third kicked by Rees just before the interval.

Some fine passing between Thomas and John Funnell saw Thomas sprint over for a try immediately after the resumption before the floodgates opened with further tries from Adrian Durston, Gareth Jones, Mama Molitika and Thomas.

Reid went over for a last-minute consolation try for Glasgow.