Strugglers Newport facing run of cup finals – Adams
Director of rugby Bob Adams has vowed to keep battling away after Newport’s survival hopes took another hit.
Newport suffered a 50-5 defeat against National League Two West leaders Luctonians on Saturday, and face the first of what Adams calls ‘seven cup finals’ when they head to Bournville this weekend.
The loss left Adams’ men, who occupy the last relegation zone, 16 points behind Bournville who are one place above. And they are now 11 points adrift of Wimbledon and Worthing in the race to be the best 13th-placed side across the National League Two divisions, a position that will guarantee survival.
“It’s a big game on Saturday, but they are all big games at the moment. We have seven cup finals left,” said Adams.
“We are now 11 points behind Wimbledon and Worthing in the battle to be the best 13th-placed club from across National Two.
“We are starring down a barrel now, but while there is still a chance we will keep giving everything.
“We have seven games left and probably need to win four of them to have a chance of staying up.
“We have got to try to make things happen. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves. The next four weeks are crucial because we face three of the top four in our last three games.
“A win would make a big difference and boost the players’ confidence.
“We have Bournville on Saturday, who are one place above us and it will be another difficult game.
“We beat them earlier in the season but they are hard to beat at home on their 4G pitch.”
Last Saturday’s game saw Newport impress hold their own early on but they were made to pay for squandering some promising field positions.
“Saturday was disappointing, for 20-25 minutes we went toe-to-toe with the top of the league,” added Adams
“But when we got close to their try line we made so many errors and were trying to force things.
“They got in four 22 four times in the first half and scored four tries. We got in theirs six or seven times and scored once.
“They were clinical, that’s why they are top of the league.
“Their coach said afterwards that the game was a lot closer than the scoreline suggests, but the object of the game is to get over the try line and we didn’t do that. This league is just so unforgiving. At the moment we are not good enough for it and we might not be by the end of the season, but I am enjoying the challenge of competing at this
level. The standard has improved this year but unfortunately we haven’t.
“Injuries haven’t helped and for various reasons we have lost 11 players this season.
“The three teams that have come in from North Midlands in the last three years are all in the bottom three. The standard in the south west region is very strong.
“Teams are able to get players in on loan from Bath, Bristol and Exeter while we haven’t got a professional side in the West Midlands.”
