News

Newport have been forced to switch scrum half Dale Burn to the wing for their Heineken Cup Pool 5 trip to table topping Toulouse on Saturday (kick-off 3.00pm local time; live on FR2 and British Eurosport).

Regular wings Hal Luscombe and Luke Nabaro have joined Wales centre Jason Jones-Hughes on the injury list with hamstring strains, while former South African full back Percy Montgomery is not qualified for the fixture.

Alex Cadwallader, Nathan Brew and Nathan Palmer were not registered in the original squad of 34 for Heineken Cup duty. In addition, forwards Adrian Garvey and Steve Ojomoh are both ruled out with muscle injuries.

With Matt Pini having retired, and headed back to his native Australia, it means a return to full back duty for Shane Howarth. Better news is that Matt Mostyn is fit to return on the right wing.

“Toulouse are a quality side who are capable to stealing a mile if you give them an inch. The challenge for us is to match the performance of our first 40 minutes against them at Rodney Parade, when we were leading, and extend that over the full 80 minutes in France,” said Newport team manager Jim McCreedy.

“We have had experience of playing in Toulouse in this tournament before, so it won’t be a step into the unknown for the players. What we do know, however, is we will be playing against one of the top teams in Europe and against a side that will clinch a quarter-final place if they can notch one more win in the Pool.

“Our quarter-final ambitions may be gone, but we will go to Toulouse and be competitive as we seek to build on our recent victory over Cardiff. Three of our next four games after Toulouse are at home – Edinburgh in the Heineken Cup and Pontypridd and Neath in the Welsh Premiership – and so we need to instill some more confidence into the side.”

NEWPORT RUGBY: Shane Howarth; Matt Mostyn, Jon Pritchard, Andy Marinos, Dale Burn; Jason Strange , Ofisa Tonu’u; Rod Snow, James Richards, Chris Anthony, Simon Raiwalui (captain), Ian Gough, Gareth Gravell, Jason Forster, Andy Powell.

Replacements: Ceri Jones, Paul Young, Mike Voyle, Matthew Veater, Rhys Jones, Scott Williams, Llyr Lane.