From the match programme:
"REVIVAL!"
"When we come to consider Newport, I suppose the real mystery is not why it is that they are suddenly beating all and sundry, but how it is that they ever got in to such a depressed situation previously. The whole thing beggars description. Here was one of the great clubs in the land, one of the big four if you like, with everything going for them, and suddenly it all seemed to evaporate like morning mist, I suppose the analysts, if they dug back far enough, would come to a single moment or event, a singularity as Einstein would say, where they could state that here was the turning point in Newport's fortunes. Whatever that event was, even the most pessimistic of Newport supporters could have supposed, for one moment, that it would lead to a period of unparalleled mourning in the history of the Club. How the great names of the past would revolve in their tombs at the thought of teams travelling to Rodney Parade fully expecting to win! And this is how it has been, apart from one or two false dawns, for years now. There is a solidity and a realism about Newport's latest resurrection, however that proclaims that this is the real thing, and that the good times everlastingly around the corner are at last coming into view. Anyone who beats Llanelli and Cardiff within a couple of days can surely be entitled to regard themselves as up-and-coming, at the very least! A few months ago we would have regarded tonight's encounter as a banker win - now Newport, breathing fire, are looking to underline their recent run of success. It should be quite an encounter!"
"OLD PROBLEMS"
"Our own problems are vastly different and highly complex. There are occasions when we play rugby of a scope and purity that draws breathless acclamation even from opponents. Then at other times it all fragments, and we are desperately pulling in all directions to fit the pieces back again. Then it is that, in piling effort upon effort to try to recapture fluency, we fall foul of referees who, like everyone else, are subconsciously conditioned by a barrage of adverse media criticism, much of it of the 'man bites dog' variety. This, coupled with our uncanny ability to shoot ourselves in the foot, continually pulls us back from previously attained heights and lets us down again with a thump. Some opponents, knowing our position, are quick to take advantage, putting immediate physical pressure on us that would have the Three Saints of Llantrisant, never mind a couple of honest toilers in the scrum, reaching for their knuckledusters. Of such are our problems compounded, and it seems there is no answer other than to let the pages of history turn themselves over until the whole thing ceases to be news and normal service can be resumed."
"THE LEAGUES ARE HERE"
"It now looks certain that Leagues will be in operation next season, and the serial can come to its long-awaited final chapter. Why there has been all the fuss and hoo-ha I can never understand. Nothing has been more obvious than that Leagues would appear whatever the Merit Clubs did or said, particularly when the WRU, backed by the hundreds of smaller clubs who felt that at last they had the big clubs 'on the hip', moved the goalposts and threatened to chuck us out if we did not comply. The legality of this is doubtful, and for a while I found myself wishing the Merit clubs would take the bait and put the matter to the test. But after all, I suppose it is better as it is. Certainly the game will change completely, and in a few seasons we shall see the smaller clubs coming through and some of the bigger names drop- ping further and further back. Therewill be no sentiment. I look forward, too, to talking in a few years' time to some of the 'second class' clubs who give the impression, rightly or wrongly, that they are ready for the big-time here and now. Perhaps they will by then have a better idea of the financial drain, the strain upon playing strength, the constant pressure and the glare of publicity that makes the whole thing infinitely more wearing in reality than it appears at a casual glance. They will reply that none of this matters, that it will all be accepted, that they will sink or swim according to their sufficiencies and deficiencies, and I accept all this and indeed welcome it, speaking personally. But perhaps at the end of it all, the role played by the big clubs for a hundred years and more will be finally appreciated for what it was."
"R.T."