THE Wales Schools under-18s team will officially open the new floodlit pitch at Llanwern School in Newport on Friday.

The Wales youngsters, featuring three Llanwern pupils from the Newport County AFC academy, will take on Australia Schoolboys at 2pm.

Llanwern head teacher Peter Jenkins and the school governors will be in attendance along with the mayor of Newport Cliff Suller and mayoress.

Also at the match will be council leaders, Assembly members and guests from the Welsh Football Trust, the Football Association of Wales and the Welsh Schools Football Association, including WSFA chairman Cledwyn Ashford and fellow officers.

The game comes at the end of the WSFA under-18 selection process with manager Martin Evans and coach Glyn Jones having put together a strong squad to face the touring Australian side.

The Welsh squad will move on to play the English Independent Schools before convening for a training camp in Newport, after which the squad will compete in this season’s Schools Association Football International Board Centenary Shield under-18 competition.

Wales then have home matches against the Republic of Ireland at Cefn Druids FC and England at Wrexham before away games in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The three Llanwern players in the squad for the Australia game are Tre Marrett, Lewis Jones and Jessie Victory.

Previous members of the Wales under-18s squad include Swansea City star Ben Davies and former County midfielder Lee Evans, now at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Squad: Lewis Thomas (Pentrehafod High School), Keighan Jones (Deeside College); Tom Walters (Bridgend College), Aron Davies (Llanedeyrn High School), Sam Pearson (Neath College), Ross Davies (Fairwater High School), Emlyn Lewis (Aberaeron Comprehensive School), Jesse Victory (Llanwern High School), Laurie Haworth (Pembrokeshire College), Alex Jarman (Chepstow Comprehensive), Lewis Jones (Llanwern High School), Sam Faulkner (Coleg Menai), Callum Margetson (Neath College), Zyaac Edwards (Prestatyn High School), Kostya Georgievsky (Gower College), Peter Jones (Llandrillo College), Tre Marrett (Llanwern High School)