Newport to celebrate 150th anniversary in Super Rygbi Cymru

The Black and Ambers are celebrating their 150th anniversary season and there will be a nod to their rich history at Spytty Park and throughout the campaign.

Ty Morris’ men, who were edged out by Llandovery in the Premiership final in May, get under way in Super Rygbi Cymru with a home fixture against Bridgend.

Last Saturday members of the coaching staff and squad were among the guests who kicked off the anniversary celebrations with a gala dinner at Celtic Manor.

Not only were they brushing shoulders with some legends but they will have them at the front of their minds in the coming weeks and months.

Newport boss Ty Morris addresses his players after the Premiership semi-final win against Ebbw Vale (Image: Chris Fairweather/Huw Evans Agency)

“I spent the last couple of months building up a little handbook to deliver to the players around what it means to play for Newport,” said head coach Morris, whose players wore traditional cotton jerseys in several pre-season friendlies in a nod to the past.

“It has a bit of history such as captions around Charlie Pritchard, what he did for his country in the First World War [when he died in France] and what we can now do for the club. We have to do our bit for the jersey.

“I hope that can give us an extra five or 10 per cent in a special season, we are going to embrace it and we have themed a lot of our stuff around the 150th such as our calls on the pitch.”

Even the smallest of boosts could lead to silverware for Newport after they suffered a 14-7 defeat in an engrossing Premiership final at Church Bank.

“You just have to move on, it was just a game between two good teams and unfortunately they had one or two things that went their way and we didn’t,” said Morris.

“They won it, we didn’t lose it as such because we played well and I was proud of the performance and the season.

“We’ve got to build on that and it is an exciting new challenge in SRC – by Christmas last season there was a top six and a bottom six but I don’t think there will be a split this year.

“All the teams have strengthened and you just have to look at Bridgend for this weekend, they have a new coaching team and a few Pontypridd players who know each other well so I expect them to be a hell of a lot better.

“Previously when playing a team lower in the table you might have been able to experiment with a fringe player but I’m not sure whether we will have that luxury, especially in the first block of seven games.”

Newport’s strength in recent seasons has been their competition for places and that remains the case despite the promotion of the likes of Che Hope and Joe Westwood to become senior Dragons.

BACK: Gareth Wyatt has rejoined Newport as backs coach

The main changes have come as part of Morris’ backroom staff with former Black and Ambers Gareth Wyatt and Ceri Jones returning to look after the backs and forwards respectively.

James Dixon has changed role to defence coach while Stuart Lawrence is now team manager with Mark Workman taking the role of chairman.

“We always have a turnaround of players but this summer there hasn’t been as much, and that was because of the coaching changes,” said Morris.

“To have 15 new boys and three new coaches would have almost been starting afresh, so that continuity of player has helped the transition of the coaches coming in.”

There will be another shift this season with talisman fly-half/centre Matt O’Brien likely to play fewer fixtures because of his commitments as attack coach at the Dragons.