Proud Gravell hoping Neath hit the heights this term

NEATH captain Gareth Gravell has spoken of his pride at retaining the skipper's armband for the third successive season.

The 31-year old flanker continues to bring his valuable experience to the club and he hopes to lead the Welsh All Blacks to honours this term.

“I’m very proud to lead this team again,” he said. “Neath are a great club and we’re looking to hit the heights again this season.

“I think we’ll do well this year. We had a difficult end to last year with injuries as we had quite a tense campaign and we slipped out of the play-off spots.

“But as long as we keep our squad fit, we should be challenging for honours again. We’ve got the two cup competitions too and we want to make a good impression there and get to a couple of finals.

“We’ll be working hard in training and the odd bit of luck too will see us through.”

Neath have a tough start to the league, taking on Swansea at The Gnoll on September 1. And while the Whites finished five places below Neath last season, Gravell knows it will be a hard opener for his men.

“Swansea is always a big one for the fans and players,” said Gravell, who hails from Burry Port. “We haven’t had many pre-season games, just the one against the Adam Jones XV.

“But the boys train well, they always do exceptionally in training and it gets just as tense as games at times. That’s the way we like to treat it anyway.

“We’ve been working on a lot of contact and getting used to some of the new rules coming in, working hard, gelling well as a team so we can hit the ground running.”

Neath have a handful of new signings and trialists and Gravell is happy by the way they’ve all slotted in with coach Pat Horgan’s systems.

“The new boys have all fitted in well especially some of the youngsters from the lower divisions, they’ve really put their hands up in fairness,” Gravell said.

“We want to be known as an entertaining side this season. We want to play a good set of rugby, score lots of tries and get fans in at The Gnoll. If we play well, play a good brand of the game and the boys enjoy it, then the wins will follow.”