Do not be fooled by the heavy look of Saturday's 41-17 result from Cambridge, Newport were made to work every inch of the way for their victory by the adventurous students.

Although they emerged winners by seven tries to three, the visitors found themselves surprisingly matched by the students in the scrums and line-outs and they had to make the most of their superior pace out wide to earn victory in a game that was always very fast and extremely furious.

Without a meaningful game for some time and with a Heineken Cup meeting with London Irish looming large on the horizon, Cambridge provided just the sort of opposition the Newport coaching team had been looking for - the reason they were prepared to make the long trek east to the university city for the first meeting between the two clubs for more then a quarter of a century.

"It was just what we wanted," said director of rugby Darryl Jones after he had watched his side win by scoring seven tries out wide.

Although concerned with the manner in which his pack was handled by the university side, Jones was much happier with the way his side used the ball once they secured it.

"It was a good, fast game with Cambridge coming at us," he said. "I was happy with the way we defended but what pleased me most was our back play.

"We attacked from deep and managed to get good support to the ball carrier. We have not had too much rugby recently and it was exactly the sort of game we needed to keep us up to pace ahead of London Irish."

Newport had taken their strongest possible European qualified side with them and kicked off with seven internationals in their line up with two more on the replacements bench.

But it was Australian winger Matt Mostyn who proved the main difference between the two teams scoring four of his sides tries and making two others.

Cambridge, who face Oxford in the Varsity rugby match at Twickenham a week tomorrow were without six first choice players in their final outing before their big game in just over seven days time.

Cambridge University, McGrath; Morel (Marchant 67), Mantle, Wright, Delebarker; Edwards, Dormer; Forde, Collins (Gladstone 40), Reilly, Robinson, Purdy (Garden 75)., Scrimgeour (Hocken 40), Blaikie (capt) (Girvan 60), Eru. Scorers: Tries - Collins, Forde, Wright; Conversion - Edwards.

Newport: Howarth, Mostyn, Jones-Hughes, Marinos, Luscombe; Strange, Tonu'u; Jones (Anthony 40), Richards (Young 52), Garvey, Gough (Veater 60), Voyle, Gravell, Forster, Ojomoh (Powell 52). Scorers: Mostyn (4), Forster, Jones-Hughes, Luscombe; Conversions - Howarth (3). Referee: R Draper (East Midlands).