Chief Warlow expecting tough last 16 test from Wizards

PREVIEW Newport v Aberavon Sunday January 28. Kick-off 2.30pm

NEWPORT tackle Aberavon at Rodney Parade this afternoon with a place in the quarter-finals of the Cup up for grabs for the victors.

The Black and Ambers are twice former winners of the competition and are bidding to reach their first final since 2001 when they were victorious against Neath.

Craig Warlow’s side reached the second round of this season’s competition with a 24-20 victory at Swansea earlier this month while the Wizards are themselves three-time former cup finalists, reaching their last final back in 2011.

Meanwhile they were crushing 71-3 home victors over National Championship side Skewen in the last round – the Wizards’ first success in the competition in the last four seasons.

These sides have not met in the Premiership yet this term.

However, Newport were narrow 11-10 home victors the last time they faced one another in this competition back in January 2015.

Having trailed 10-8 at the break, Geraint O’Driscoll held his nerve to boot Newport to victory.

Ahead of their latest meeting, Newport head coach Warlow said: “Aberavon have lost a few senior players from last year but are still a quality side, we know that, and expect a difficult game.

“We haven’t played for a couple of weeks and training has been difficult because conditions have been so poor.

“We’ve tried to give the boys some time off; mentally it was good to give them a break although that’s not ideal from a momentum point of view.

“We have to create that now for the first 10-15 minutes against Aberavon to ensure we can take that through the game.”