Newport county and Harrogate Town went to battle on a cold and empty Rodney Parade in a rather strange kick off time of 12:30 to follow UEFA streaming rules. A good performance was needed after the ludicrous display last weekend against Salford City at an empty Rodney Parade.
There was no manager James Rowberry on the touchline today due to covid as assistant Wayne Hatswell was the main man on the side for us this afternoon.
County made 2 changes going into the game with Scott Bennett replacing Robbie Willmott and new signing Josh Pask coming into the team for his debut for James Clarke.
Newport started a little slowly as Harrogate had the early possession but with one of our 1st attacks of the game Dom Telford was bundled over in the box and the referee gave a penalty. Without the normal penalty taker Matty Dolan on the pitch responsibility fell to the Captain Mickey Demetriou who just about managed to get it in even though Harrogate keeper Mark Oxley guessed the right way.
Courtney Baker-Richardson, who going into the game was on a 4 game goal drought had one great chance as he was slid in by Cooper but the Oxley made himself look as big as he could which denied CBR.
Newport had chance after chance in the 1st half but the keeper Oxley was equal to a lot of it. Nick Townsend justified his selection by making a few wonderful saves when the game was only 1-0.
Dom Telford who else got county's 2nd after he had a shot which managed to find its way to slide past Oxley who made a bit of a mess of it but Telford will claim it as his to put us 2 goals to the good just before half time.
Just after the half time break Dom Telford got his 2nd of the afternoon as he got the ball onto his deadly left foot and fired it past Oxley in the Harrogate goal.
No less than about 6 mins later we had a 4th as CBR finally broken his drought in front of goal. He went around Oxley and lifted the ball over the Harrogate defenders who were on the goal line to make it 4-0.
We then seen a debut for new signing James Waite who joined the club in the week on an 18 month contract from Penybont. He did quite well when he came on to the pitch and the forwards should have done better with some of the passes he put through for them.
From there the game died out as there wasn't much to shout about. Harrogate enjoyed a spell of possession but they couldn't find an opening.
I thought Josh Pask was outstanding on his debut and showed that he has played at a higher level. I think he could be a key bit of business done by James Rowberry and sporting director Darren Kelly.
It ended 4-0 to the County and for the 1st time in 10 games we kept a clean sheet which im sure will give the defense a lot of confidence.
The result moves us up to 5th in the live table before the 3 o' clocker's got underway. An in depth breakdown of the game is coming tomorrow on look back in amber at 3pm
on Newport City Radio with me, Stephen and Lamsie. Also don't forget to
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