RUGBY Town began their pre-season campaign with a narrow 2-1 defeat against Newport Pagnell Town.
Valley’s team featured seven trialists as manager Carl Adams fielded two different XI’s in either half on the 3G pitch at Butlin Road.
With the likes of Chris Clements, Barry Fitzharris, Ryan Sahota, Keenah Rosser, Tomasz Bukowski and Edwin Ahenkorah all unavailable, Adams ran the rule over a number of players.
New forward signing Trey Charles made his first appearance for the club alongside returning players Paul Hathaway, Dan Summerfield and Josh Thomas.
Thomas was the only player to feature in both halves and lined up with Liam Francis, Harrison Nee, MJ Semahimbo, Sami Muzaffar and David Kolodynski among the trialists.
And one of the trialists opened the scoring in the first half for Rugby after cutting in from the left and finding the net with a low finish from just inside the penalty area.
Valley’s old United Counties League Premier South rivals Newport turned the score on its head with two goals in the second half while Nee missed a couple of decent chances at the other end.
