FONR Trust

As a fund raising exercise FoNR Trust arranged a competition for supporters to select the Newport players from the period 1975-2005 whom they considered would make up the "best" team. This was well received by the supporters and we had many interesting entries. A list of players had been drawn up with the help of users on Talk Newport forum and this was reduced to a short list by FoNR History sub-committee.

The following panel was selected :

Robin Davey, South Wales Argus, John Ryan, former Newport RFC player, coach and Wales coach, David Watkins, former Newport, Wales, British Lions, Great Britain RL captain and current Newport President and Mike Dams, Club Historian / FoNR History Officer.

After much deliberation, the panel selected the following team :

Shane Howarth,
Ken Davies,
David Burcher,
Gareth Evans,
Rob Ackerman,
Gareth Rees,
Allan Evans,
Colin Smart,
Mike Watkins,
Rhys Morgan,
Ian Gough,
David Waters,
Jeff Squire,
Geoff Evans,
Gary Teichmann (capt).

Interestingly Rod Snow, who was one of the most popular players ever to wear the famous Black & Amber shirt failed to make the final 15 and was edged out by another popular player and past captain Colin Smart who was highly rated by the panel and who was also in the reckoning as the captain of the side which finally went to Gary Teichmann. Other interesting selections were Gareth Rees who got the vote over current Dragons coach Paul Turner and locks Ian Gough and David Waters who faced tough competition from Kevin Moseley, Simon Raiwalui and Mike Voyle.

Congratulations to our winner Richard Armstead of Bassaleg who has been supporting Newport since the late 1960's. Richard picked 13 of the 15 players selected by the panel. We plan to present Richard with his prize at the Meet the Players Evening in August 2006.