Dragons to face Russia

Here is the team to face the Bears.

Dragons squad for Russia (Rodney Parade Tuesday 16th August, 7pm)

15. Steffan Jones, 14. Matthew Pewtner, 13. Tom Riley, 12. Ashley Smith, 11. Michael Poole, 10. Jason Tovey, 9. Joe Bedford

1. Phil Price, 2. Tom Willis, 3. Ben Castle, 4. Adam Jones, 5. Scott Morgan, 6. Jevon Groves, 7. Gavin Thomas, 8. Tom Brown

Replacements (Rolling subs)
Aaron Coundley, Rhys Buckley, Dan Way, Hugo Ellis, Andrew Coombs, , Darren Waters, Wayne Evans, Matthew Jones, Patrick Leach, Adam Hughes, Martyn Thomas

http://www.newportgwentdragons.com/newsarticle.aspx?n=18327


Looking forward to this one. It will be nice to see an international team down at RP. Any thoughts on score predictions. I think it will be physical at the breakdown and set piece. Dragons by 5-10 points.

Looking forward to this, it's been too long. Going for Dragons by less than 10.

Fantastic to see Thomas on the bench. Has he been overtaken by Jones at full-back or still working his way back from injury?

I'd be disappointed if we don't post a good win against them. Northampton did. Dragons by 15-20 I'm hoping.

Not too bad a side really either. Be interested to see how Poole goes. Pewtner I am not that keen on, but will give him a chance. The two guys in the backrow (Groves and Brown) will hopefully go well too, same as Bedford at 9.

REV - what price at tickets ? Are you going ?

Dunno on price. I'll look now for you. Mine is free with my Season Ticket and yes I am going.

£10 for the terraces. 15 for the Hazell stand (seated). I assume you aren't an OAP

The new stand isn't open yet though.

Ah, ya wee bollix Are you going for a beforehand - Dodger ?

Can do. I am driving though, as I have to go straight back to base after it.

It only dawned on me today that I have missed going to RP so much. Can't wait for tomorrow.

Will ring you tomorrow

Hope that it is a cracking game and to all who can make it,have a great evening!

Can't wait for this - and to see for myself how things are looking with the new stand. I'm not going to predict a score though - they're an international side, we'll have to work hard for a win!

By terraces do they mean the old family stand ?

By terraces do they mean the old family stand ?

Family stand is now the 'North' stand. It's the same price as the Hazel terrace. I think 1 ticket allows you access to both.

Fantastic to see Thomas on the bench. Has he been overtaken by Jones at full-back or still working his way back from injury?

Yes, he's just come back from a second leg break. I would think if all goes ok, he'll be fighting it out with Jaime Smith for the FB spot.

Good game , 40 -12 to the dragons , new stand is lush

munkian wrote:Good game , 40 -12 to the dragons , new stand is lush

Yup I agree literally just got back to Cornelly, fantastic game, my partner and myself love it.
I thought that russian openside number 7 was a hard sod, he had a bad ankle injury in the 20th minute, but he carried on until nearly the end regardless. I was quite suprised because he appeared to be in a lot of pain.
Great game though. My partner liked the Russian number 17, he was waddling about the field, plugging gaps and doing as little as possible. I did see a face of shock horror on his face when the ball came towards him, and often if he managed to get to the ruck before the ball got out, he would just flop on top of it.
The Russian wingers and Number 8 might be guys to look out for in the World Cup.

I enjoyed the Rodney Parade crown they seem a loverly bunch. and they gave the Russians a great ovation when they came past the main stand while warming up, they achnowledged it and clapped back. They also got a lot of encouragement from the crowd when they attempted to play running rugby and when they scored tries.

Steffen Jones looked great tonight.

Jones was excellent, great prospect for us. Was the Russian 17 the mayor of London look like that inspired cheers of cmon Boris !!!
?

munkian wrote:Jones was excellent, great prospect for us. Was the Russian 17 the mayor of London look like that inspired cheers of cmon Boris !!!
?

Thats the one exactly, that guy was such a legend. He was one of those guys who shuffles his feet and 100 mph, but is actually doing about 2mph.
The guy shouting boris was right behind me, I was on the 22M line, near the balconies (as opposed to the terracing), on the last but one row, in the main stand.
Block C, Row L, Seat 7

Alyn, Munkian, I've just got back myself, what about Russia's try? That's one of the best tries I've seen live, but the chances are that no one was filming it.

I thought their (Russias) second one was amazing the left wing broke on the left hand touch line and the right wing finushed it off. I think that was in the 50th minute, because Newport brought on almost an entire new team and scored 3 fast tries to kill the game off.
Those Russian wingers really do look talented, a few of that team could easily be good professionals at Magners league levels, but there seems a hell of a gulf between the best and weakest players in their squad though.

I thought Steffan Jones try was a great one to, though the way the Dragons worked over laps in general was brilliant tonight, their really quick and expansive. I think it bodes well for next season for you.

It was ridiculous when we brought on the subs, wasn't it? There was hardly anyone left!

I'm glad you had a good experience down the Parade, Alyn. Next step for me is a visit to the Liberty.

Sloppy tackles but great try. Was stood by Russian dug out , Boris was raring to go all game. Huge gob on the Russian scrum half

It was rolling subs for both teams no ?

I thought he was either Boris's brother or an Icelander!

luckless_pedestrian wrote:It was ridiculous when we brought on the subs, wasn't it? There was hardly anyone left!

I'm glad you had a good experience down the Parade, Alyn. Next step for me is a visit to the Liberty.

I will be nice to have you down the Liberty.

I think Northampton changed their entire team at half time. When Newport made the changes I actually had to count the Dragons on the pitch because it seemed they had far to many .
I think the Russians did a head count also

Awful Dragons tackling for the one try! The Russian lad must have 'broken' about 8 tackles!

I thought the new stand looked awesome. The multi coloured seats are apparently to make it look fuller when low attendance. I took a photo on my phone at the end and to be fair it looks full of people! Strange. Optical illusion I guess.

Thought Steffan looked good, Tom Brown looked a handful at 8, and Michael Poole was able to mix it up well with nice breaks and offloads but also big hits and the ability to make hard yards. I think there's a bit of competition for places hotting up now, which is great from a coaching point of view. Also, when a team makes around 8 subs in a friendly the game usually goes belly up but I think we played better with the new guys on! Strong finish to the game.

munkian wrote:It was rolling subs for both teams no ?

the match program says, expanded bench and rolling subs, to the bottom left of page 7.

Griff wrote:Awful Dragons tackling for the one try! The Russian lad must have 'broken' about 8 tackles!

I thought the new stand looked awesome. The multi coloured seats are apparently to make it look fuller when low attendance. I took a photo on my phone at the end and to be fair it looks full of people! Strange. Optical illusion I guess.

Thought Steffan looked good, Tom Brown looked a handful at 8, and Michael Poole was able to mix it up well with nice breaks and offloads but also big hits and the ability to make hard yards. I think there's a bit of competition for places hotting up now, which is great from a coaching point of view. Also, when a team makes around 8 subs in a friendly the game usually goes belly up but I think we played better with the new guys on! Strong finish to the game.

I think you scored 2 tries within 5 minutes of the changes which killed the game off. I was a bit gutted Russia didnt get that one at the end, I think all the crowd was willing him on, but the Newport played didnt want him to get it.

Matthew Jones really steered the ship well. I'm not a big fan but he had a good game tonight.

15. Yury Kushnarev - VVA-Podmoskovye (Monino)
14. Denis Simplikevich - Enisey-STM (Krasnoyarsk)
13. Sergey Trishin - VVA-Podmoskovye (Monino)
12. Igor Galinovsky -Krasniy Yar (Krasnoyarsk)
11. Igor Klyuchnikov - VVA-Podmoskovye (Monino)
10. Konstantin Rachkov - Stade Phoceen (France)
9. Andrey Bykanov - Slava-ShVSM (Moscow)
1. Vladimir Botvinnikov - Enisey-STM (Krasnoyarsk)
2. Valeriy Tsnobiladze - Novokuznetsk (Novokuznetsk)
3. Alexander Khrokin - VVA-Podmoskovye (Monino)
4. Alexander Voytov - VVA-Podmoskovye (Monino)
5. Denis Antonov - Slava-ShVSM (Moscow)
6. Kirill Kushnarev - VVA-Podmoskovye (Monino)
7. Andrey Garbuzov -Krasniy Yar (Krasnoyarsk)
8. Viatcheslav Grachev - Bizanos (France)

Substitutes from:
Evgeny Matveev, Alexey Travkin, Kirill Kopeshkin, Andrey Temnov, Artem Fatakhov, Alexander Yanyushkin, Sergey Sugrobov, Mikhail Babaev, Andrey Kuzin

http://rugby.ru/en/news/id_865/
That's the Russian team they picked tonight, off the Russian web site.

Good result for us down at Dave but anyone go, can't see report anywhere.

How the new stadium coming along?

no prob rd, still getting used to things lol

bedfordwelsh wrote:Good result for us down at Dave but anyone go, can't see report anywhere.

How the new stadium coming along?

I travelled over from Bristol.

Stadium is coming along nicely, have put more seats in since I was there for the 7s game.

New number 8 looks strong and powerful, could be nice cover for Toby during RWC.

New scrum half and wing looked good too as did Tovey and Hughes.

http://www.newportgwentdragons.com/newsarticle.aspx?n=18341

Good result for us. Was great to be back at Dave Parade. I agree the new stand looks great, the pattern of the seats remind me of those magic eye pictures from a while ago. I kept expecting to see dragons or something come out in 3D.

Thought Russia gave a good account of themselves and scored that excellent try. Dragons looked quite expansive too and tried to keep the ball constantly moving. Looks as though we are carrying on our style of play from last season which is a bonus.

2,500 turn out wasn't bad either considering it was a midweek game.

Alyn - Glad you enjoyed your time at the Parade mate!

Need to sort out the bars though, missed th ekick off queing up and they dont have cider ?

I almost missed kick off because they were having problems with their Carling.

Heh heh, I had to settle for that in the end.

They need the magical beer back-pack girls to return

They were really handy, weren't they?

I think the back pack people were from Heineken, so only for the Heineken cup. However, the Dragons could make a bit of extra cash if they employed some too, as when it's too busy I can't be bothered to go to the bar!

The beer was a lot speedier last season than the one before as they bought some of those 6 pint pouring machines, like at festivals. Maybe this had broken down and they were back to one at a time?!

Griff, they were around at the Ospreys game in the Magners too, so it's not just a Heineken Cup thing. Presumably they'll be back when the 'Rabo Pro 12' starts.

Oh ok, my mistake. Hope they get them back then.

Also, were my eyes deceiving me or were there beer pumps at the back of the new end terrace (old family stand) at the end of last season??? Looked like match programme stalls but with beer coming out of them! I thought they were a nice touch for those poor sods who had to stand in the rain with no cover!

luckless_pedestrian wrote:I almost missed kick off because they were having problems with their Carling.

Oh my god you must of been right behind me in the queue then!
I was queing up with my partner and we got 2 pints of lager shandy, and there were a few people in the queue with us waiting, lucking the lady with the tatoo connected a new barrell and we got in just in time. If you were there when she shouted "anyone who wants guiness go to the other bar please" then you would of been next to me, lol!

What are the odds?

luckless_pedestrian wrote:What are the odds?

2,565 to 1 based on the attendance last night

Enjoyed the game, great to be back.

Mike Poole - Parade legend in the making, like Adam Hughes he seems to speed up going into contact and that hit was immense!

Adam Jones - Seems to have come back after the summer a bit harder and grittier, he loved the contact.

Groves - Time with the 7's has done him well, great offloading.

Scott Morgan - Obviously realised he is a full time lock with us and has come back bulked up. Excellent in the line out as always.

Matthew Jones - Superb, will push Tovey.

Joe Bedford - Big lad, good service. Now pleased with his signing.

Coombs - Beast, what an athlete

Back three on a whole were good, Pewtner went looking for work and Steffan Jones gets better every time I see him.

Very pleased on the whole, think we can tear some decent teams apart this season.

If the attendance was only 2,565 then where do the other 2,500 go, if the Dragons attendances were 5,000 last season?
The seating area looked almost full, especially between the 22 metre lines. was there a lot less in the terracing than usual?

Also can anyone tell me the prices of tickets on Magners match days please, as I'm pretty keen to go and visit there again (When it doesnt clash with an Ospreys home game). I was really taken in by the family, community aspect of the Dragons fans and the fun everyone was having in the ticket office / bar area and on the green with the children playing rugby, it's not something Iv'e seen at any other club. It amazing how stuck up and insular some aspects of the Ospreys hard core are, and unless you own a season ticket and drink at certain places and are part of their "cliq"they don't want to know you, the Dragons seemed to have much more of a family friendly and community feel to it.

Alyn - £20 for a ticket for the Hazell Terrace or £17 if you book in advance, which I'm pretty sure is the same as last year.

luckless_pedestrian wrote:Alyn - £20 for a ticket for the Hazell Terrace or £17 if you book in advance, which I'm pretty sure is the same as last year.

Thanks mate Ive spent the last few hours comparing the Ospreys and Dragons fixtures and there dont appear to be any clashes so I might be able to get up there for a few .
In fact if you look at all 4 regions it's possible to see all their home games as they don't over run each other.

Really? It would cost a fair bit to see every region's home games though!