Adams eyes a big push for national survival next year

They stayed up in their first season in National Two West thanks to their strong home form, with the majority of victories coming after the turn of the year.

And with the fixture list offering Newport lots of home games in 2024, Adams is keeping his fingers crossed that a similar story will play out next year.

“We struggled in the first half of last season as we have this year,” he said.

“Last year we found some form after Christmas when we had plenty of home games, and by chance this year the same number of home games have been afforded to us so hopefully we can get some performances next year and our home form can see us through.”

Enjoyable

Adams added: “Even though we’ve been losing it’s been enjoyable, the standard of rugby is a lot greater than the level below, but we’ve enjoyed going to places we never thought we would’ve like Redruth or Cambourne.”

The club have had to face new challenges this season in terms of squad building, with the club’s academy unable to produce the amount of high quality talent needed for the level.

“We’ve had a decent number of homegrown players representing our club over the years, but at this level you need about 30 and we haven’t got 30 players who can play national rugby,” Adams said.

“I think last season we had 12 and this season we’ve got eight, and while you want to keep your identity within the community to play at this level you do have to recruit from further afield.”

He added: “What we’ve noticed this year is with Wasps and Worcester Warriors both going under, the number of younger players looking for game time has now ceased, so recruitment is difficult.

“The two top midlands teams now are Coventry and Moseley, and speaking to both of their directors of rugby they just don’t have the pull from the professional game than they previously had. Losing two clubs like that has a knock-on effect.

“The season we came up we had players on loan from Moseley, who themselves had players on loan from Wasps or Worcester, so now those two have gone under the knock-on effect means Moseley can’t lose their young players and we don’t get them on loan.”

Newport will end 2023 with a trip to Chester on Saturday hoping to round off the year in style, with Adams hoping for a Christmas miracle: “It would be nice to have an early Christmas present, I’d love to get a win up there.”