Neath’s Principality Premiership fixtures for 2017/18 have been released.

After last year’s dislocations, the League format has been revised. There will be an East-West home and away split prior to Christmas before the Division re-unites for 15 games against all clubs, either home or away, in a reverse of last year’s ties.

Meritocracy points (8 for 1st, 7 for 2nd through to 1 for 8th) will be carried forward from the first phase into the second and in total there will be 29 games in all – up from last year’s 22 – and the Foster’s Cup has been discontinued.

The list should not be taken as finite because there is a lot of work to be done yet – particularly around the internationals and where clubs ground-share with regions.

One new innovation is the “doubling up” of fixtures at Easter with all clubs playing two games over the spectator-friendly holiday on Good Friday and Easter Monday.

Again there will be no League fixtures on British & Irish Cup Saturdays but it is hoped to arrange non-League games during these periods – so don’t go booking holidays yet !

League fixtures kick off on the August Bank Holiday weekend with Neath entertaining Swansea (exact time to be confirmed as there is cricket adjacent on the Saturday afternoon) and the full list is available via this link:

http://www.neathrugby.org.uk/neathrugby.wales/fixtures-and-results/