NEWPORT Rugby Club are furious and fans are up in arms that the home Cardiff league game this month has been switched to Friday night, April 26.

The reason for their anger is that yet another evening kick-off means the last time Newport had a Saturday afternoon match was, incredibly, September 1.

The first two home league games of the season against Caerphilly and Edinburgh were on a Saturday afternoon, since when all their weekend games have been on a Friday or Saturday night.

Clearly television money forms an important part of clubs' income and in some ways Newport are victims of their own success because they are wanted on TV so often. But both the club and fans are annoyed over a perceived lack of fairness in allocating the TV matches.

"Television money drives the game, but the companies should be more sensitive to fans who have had a rough time this season," said Newport chief executive Keith Grainger. "We have gone nearly eight months without a 2.30pm Saturday kick-off, but the BBC have again told us it's Friday night for the Cardiff game.

"The contract says we must be given 14 days notice and they have given us 28, so there is not much we can do about it.

"But I have asked them to be more reasonable towards the paying public. The BBC have told us that they do understand, but they won't change.

"The Welsh Rugby Union structure that gives us such a season is hardly a success." Newports' weekend home games since September 1 read like this:

Saturday night: Toulouse. Friday night: Swansea. Friday night: Leinster. Friday night: Newcastle. Friday night: Llanelli. Saturday night: Glasgow.

To come, April 26, Friday night: Cardiff.

It's been a similar story away with Neath, Newcastle, Leinster (twice), Llanelli, Pontypridd, Toulouse, Edinburgh and Ebbw Vale all on a Friday or Saturday night. Swansea a week Saturday is a night TV match and Glasgow early next month is on a Friday night.

Arriving in time for the Cardiff game is Gary Teichmann, who led Newport for two years with his crowning achievement the club's first cup final triumph for 24 years.

He will arrive on the Wednesday before the match and return home the next day. Club benefactor Tony Brown, meanwhile, has to decide on the coach for next season and has promised Leinster's Australian assistant Alan Gaffney a decision soon.

Gaffney is also talking to Leinster about renewing his contract there and also to another Irish province, but his first choice is Newport.

Brown also has some other important decisions to make. With insufficient money coming in from the WRU to make clubs competitive in Europe, Brown, though honouring contracts at Newport, may not go ahead with new investments.