NOT a bad sporting weekend ahead then for those of us in the Principality – a feast of football and rugby that should ensure Swansea and Cardiff city centres resemble world wide rubbish dumps come Sunday morning.

There will be no rugby bashing on this page this week. I appreciate that for the vast majority of you, the be all and end all is the Wales v New Zealand rugby match and a chance to end over 50 years of hurt in the famous fixture.

However, I am already dreading the comparisons that will be drawn in Monday’s Press between the Wales rugby fixture and the mouth watering battle between Cardiff City and Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium.

Look at the rugby, we will read about 70,000 passionate fans coming together, behaving themselves and having a great time. A terrific atmosphere, the kind that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Shame that Wales lost by 30 points.

And then it’ll be onto the football. Once again the south Wales derby was marred by crowd trouble. For full reaction and pictures of vile looking hooligans, see the news pages.

The troubles at the football, and if we’re being honest, these are inevitable, will once again tar football supporters with the hooligan brush.

Every occasion that Swansea and Cardiff have met since the Swans hit the Championship, has been overshadowed by clashes between fans.

Purely and simply, it’s not a fair comparison.

In no way, shape or form would I condone violence between supporters at any football game.

The horrendous scenes at Upton Park this season when Millwall visited West Ham in the Carling Cup, were nothing short of sickening.

However, it is about time that the supposed war zone between Cardiff and Swansea was given some sort of perspective.

If, or indeed when, there is trouble, it will be from a tiny minority of morons.

These fans don’t represent Cardiff or Swansea; they represent a society at large that have a problem with behaving themselves after drinking.

The majority of Cardiff and Swansea fans are not hooligans, they won’t misbehave and like the rest of the holier than thou rugby followers, will abhor violence and bad behaviour.

And then there is the rugby. While the atmosphere in the ground will be magnificent and hopefully the contest will do it justice, the pubs and clubs around the Millennium Stadium will tell a very different story.

Because what is a rugby international in Wales? Ultimately, it’s an opportunity for thousands of so-called supporters to drink all day and all night, until St Mary’s Street resembles a war zone.

Ask the bouncers and restaurant owners (or the residents) of Cardiff city centre and see if they buy into the myth of rugby supporters being well-behaved ambassadors for their sport.

Purely and simply, they turn Cardiff city centre into a complete and utter zoo.

Drunken idiots stumbling around littering to the point where come Sunday morning, the pavement can hardly be seen for beer cans and kebab wrappers.

The notion of football fans being badly behaved and rugby supporters being a step above them, is a total and utter myth, but don’t expect Monday’s news outlets to reflect that.

Similarly, I was intrigued to see mention of Marlon King in the comments section of my column last week, as if the vile and prolific criminal reflects all footballers.

If that’s the case, why not say the same for rugby, where players such as Gavin Henson and Mike Phillips have been involved in incidents of their own.

Marlon King does not represent football, just like the handful of morons who will ruin the game at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday, don’t represent football.

And while those in the Millennium Stadium may represent those with distinction, please don’t forget the drunken fools who will turn Cardiff into a cesspit.

Rugby no longer has the moral high ground; it’s as simple as that.

Now that we’ve got those two Mickey Mouse occasions out of the way, onto the real big one this weekend – the biggest fixture in the Blue Square South this season, Dover Athletic against Newport County.

The league leaders make the mammoth 460-mile round trip to face the side second in the Conference South and for those of us going, it promises to be a belter.

However, it’s imperative that County fans keep a sense of perspective on the importance of this particular game.

While a positive result would be a great boost to the Exiles’ promotion hopes, defeat would not be the end of the world, even if it does knock County off the summit.

The Exiles are in a super position heading into the busy Christmas period and the squad now is unrecognisable to that of a year ago. On numbers and strength in depth alone, County will challenge this term and whatever the result at Dover, that will remain the case.

For me it’s a fixture that will be won or lost by two men in particular for Newport.

Those men are Craig Reid and Sam Foley. The Exiles are a tremendous collective force defensively and in mercurial midfielder Danny Rose, possess a player seemingly incapable of a bad game (though the same can be said for goalkeeper Glyn Thompson and defensive anchor Wayne Turk).

However, it’s in attack that the Exiles fluctuate. On their day, Reid and Foley are the best in the league by a country mile.

However, Reid is seemingly accruing his goals in clusters and Foley is yet to step up for being sublime one week and anonymous the next. If that sounds harsh, it isn’t meant to, it’s a mark of respect for two footballers that belong at a higher level.

The pair have the ability to ride roughshod over any side at this level and if they can do so on Saturday, then the travelling masses from Spytty Park will return home happy.

It’s a very long trip. Hopefully Messrs Reid and Foley will make it worthwhile for all of us.