Newport aiming to tighten up

The Fishes got their Midlands Premier campaign off to a winning start at newly-promoted Kettering last weekend but Adams still saw areas for his new-look side to work on.

Hosts South Leicester, who were relegated from National Two North last season, were given a harsh welcoming to Midlands Premier life with a 119-0 hammering at the hands of Bournville last weekend.

But club coach Adams is focused on where his side, who narrowly missed out on the play-offs last term, can improve this season and saw facets of his side’s game to build after a five-try 33-8 opening-day success.

Adams, who was pleased with his ‘sharp’ attacking unit against Kettering, said: “Sometimes in broken field play when they (Kettering) attacked us, I felt the defence didn’t reorganise quick enough.

“We did scramble well, we’ve got quite a lot of pace in the team this year, but the defence needs to be a bit more connected and organised. We’ll work on communications. Line-outs are a work in progress although they went better than in our pre-season game.

“We’ll look to build a good platform from there. We know we’ve got a lot to work on. There’s quite a nice atmosphere in the camp, it’s one game at a time this year. We got wrapped up last year in looking too into it.

“We’ll try to better ourselves.”

Hosts South Leicester underwent a squad overhaul over the summer after their relegation and included four players to have graduated through the junior ranks in their squad last weekend.

Bridgnorth, under the stewardship of new player-coach Rod Petty, go to Bournville in search of their first league victory of the campaign.

The All Blacks were on the receiving end of a 32-11 home defeat to Sheffield last time out and will hope to contain the rampant Birmingham hosts after they hit triple figures against South Leicester.

Meanwhile, Whitchuch host Hereford in Midlands One West after an opening-day defeat at Dudley Kingswinford.