Difficult away challenges ahead for Gwent trio (From South Wales Argus)

Difficult away challenges ahead for Gwent trio

12:10am Saturday 29th September 2012 in Sport By Iwan Davies

GWENT trio Cross Keys, Newport and Bedwas are all on the road today with visits to Llanelli, Llandovery and Aberavon respectively.

And the three are all presented with their own difficult and quite distinct challenges.

Second in the table Keys, featuring Newport Gwent Dragons tighthead Tim Ryan, face fifth-placed Llanelli who are a real handful at Parc y Scarlets and motivated by a strong desire to avenge the Pandy Park side’s treble over them last season.

Newport, who have serious injury woes at prop and centre, have it all do if they are to emulate last weekend’s heroics when they beat Carmarthen Quins away. But that win showed that the mid table Black and Ambers have plenty of guts and they’ll be buoyed by that success when they face leaders of the pack Llandovery.

Finally, Hallam Amos makes his debut for high flying Bedwas, the young Dragons ace selected at full back.

They face basement side Aberavon who are bound to be pumped up because they are still searching for their first win of the season with October nearly upon us.

Cross Keys: G David, L Williams, L Ford, A James, N Trowbridge, D Jones, R Dyer (captain), A Lott, J Sollis, T Ryan, S Andrews, O Hodge, R Peebles, S Matthews, A Powell. Replacements: S Higgins, G Horrigan, J Johnstone, G Price, E Jones, D Gunter, J Lewis, R James.

Newport : A Awcock, E Frewen, G O'Driscoll, I Smerdon, W Hodnett, S Sneddon, J Leadbeater, D Pattison, R Prosser, A Jeffries, D Rosser, A Frampton, I Jones, C Attwell (captain), H Stoddart. Replacements : A Brown, J Lavender, S Waldron, C Everett, T Hancock, R Downes, A Quick.

Bedwas: H Amos, R Budina, J Dixon, S Williams, M John, R Powell, T Rowlands, I George, R Hutcherson, K Gay, J Thomas, K Maiden, P Sargent (captain), S Grainger, S Feehan. Replacements: B Roberts, D Preece, M Pettit, P Rees, D Mattravers, J Benjamin, E Davies, AN Other.