Meadows Recovered from Coventry

Youngster unveiled as a new Exile

Newport hosted their first ever meeting at Spytty Stadium last night with a bumper, almost capacity crowd in attendance. While the result, a 43-47 defeat to the Cradley Heath Cobras, was a disappointment, there was exciting news as the Exiles announced a new signing after the main meeting.

17-year old Iain Meadows has had an interesting pre-season. Having been sent to Coventry, Newport have managed to prize him away for £2,500. Meadows brings with him over 30 matches of experience at Academy League level, which, along with Samuel Holbrook and Ross Halsey, will bring some much needed experience to the Academy side.

As for the meeting itself, it was important for the Exiles to get off to a good home start after a 61-29 reverse in their first ever meeting, away to Telford. However, while a first victory was too much to ask for, there were a lot of positives for fans to take away on the long walk back into the town centre.

Firstly, captain Ben Tullett put in the kind of performance that proves exactly why he has been brought in to skipper the side with 12 paid 13 riding at number 3. However, unexpected star would have to go to Andrzej Lesiak, as the Pole scored 10 at number 2, including two heat wins.

Those two performances, alongside the 4 paid 5 that Russian Oksana Chaplinski got in the Black Country, is enough to at least show the potential green shoots of what is to come.