NEWPORT are starting the new season as they finished the last – down to the bare bones.

There were almost as many players on the sidelines as there were on the St Helen’s pitch when the Black and Ambers bowed out of the play-offs to Swansea in May and it will be the same against Llanelli at Rodney Parade tomorrow.

They have as many as 12 ruled out with severe problems at lock, back row and scrum-half.

It is a situation that has forced them to offer former Dragons number nine Alex Walker a pay-as-you-play deal before he heads off to Australia in a month.

They will also be sweating on the participation of several players who will be doubling up and featuring for both Newport and the Dragons against Cardiff Blues tonight.

Nonetheless, the Black and Ambers are able to field a strong XV with the same front five that shone in last season’s British and Irish Cup.

“We have a few injury problems but we are still positive,” said head coach Sven Cronk.

“We will be competitive and we only lost once at Rodney Parade last season, when we were comfortably ahead against Cardiff in the Swalec Cup and threw it away.

“The play-off game against Llanelli at the end of the season was something of a non-entity but the two league games were really competitive.

“Their ball-in-play time is big so they stretch teams and they also play football from all over the park so we need to nullify that.

“Our defensive lines have got to be right as do our concentration levels and we have to stop them at source in the set piece.”

Newport’s squad played two pre-season games with mixed fortunes. Their defeat at Worcester (where they played under the name Dragons Development XV because the Warriors had marketed it as a game against the region to their supporters) was a useful workout.

However, last week’s win against Launceston was a frustrating one, with the added annoyance of lock Adam Frampton fracturing his collarbone, an injury that will sideline him for six to eight weeks.

Cronk said: “We were told that Worcester would be a development game, which it clearly wasn’t given the strong side they put out, but we got plenty out of it.

“I don’t think four or five training sessions would have matched the intensity of that game and the boys defended well and stood up to the challenge.

“Launceston wasn’t so good because we got blown off the park by the referee in the second half so we got no chance to go through our structure.”

Fly-half Rhys Jones and number eight James Thomas are set for their Newport debuts while rugby league convert Jamie Tibbs will cover the back three on the bench.

Newport: A Awcock, A Hughes, P Leach, S Williams, G Chapman, R Jones, A Walker, D Pattison, Andrew Brown, G Robinson, D Rosser, A Jones (captain), S Waldron, C Hill, J Thomas. Replacements: A Coundley, A Ellis, D Way, Adam Brown, J Thomas, M Pewtner, C Wannell.