Newport County started as they mean to go on at Rodney Parade as they emphatically put 4 goals past Doncaster Rovers.
Graham Coughlin made two changes to the team that beat Charlton on Tuesday night with both changes coming at full back with Adam Lewis and Shane McLoughlin came into the starting 11 in place of James Waite and Josh Seberry.
They carried on from where they left off against Charlton and made a very bright start with an early chance as Aaron Wildig floated a really good ball into the box which Ian Lawlor punched away.
Within 6 minutes County were ahead as Seb Palmer-Houlden did ever so well to dispossess Joseph Olowu on the bar line and he tucked home to make it 3 goals in consecutive games at Rodney Parade.
Seb nearly made it 4 in 3 at Rodney Parade as midfielder Scot Bennett dispossessed a Doncaster player and played him through but he fired wide of goal.
It was 2-0 only a few minutes later however as Shane Mcloughlin has a shot which was saved but into the path of Will Evans who shows great instinct to score his first league goal of the season.
It was soon 3 after a scramble in the Donny penalty area and veteran defender Richard Wood who Graham Coughlan yesterday said he tried to sign over the summer put the ball in his own net to put us 3-0 up within 25 minutes.
The poor start for his side prompted Rovers manager Grant McCann into a double change only half an hour into the match which didn't really have that much impact on the game as wave after wave of attack from Newport County followed until half time as County looked the most dangerous that i've seen them in a long time. 6 shots on target in that first half with 3 goals (1 albeit an own goal.) We were very clinical in the first half. It could and almost should've been 5 or 6 at the break we had further chances through SPH, Bryn Morris and Shane McLoughlin.
It only took Will Evans 5 second half minutes to get his second of the afternoon as he was played in by Shane McLoughlin and the forward slots it in the bottom left corner and matches his goal tally in the league already after just 2 games.
This prompted Doncaster into 2 more changes and saw new boy Mo Faal who impressed me and Tommy Rowe come on in what looked like another formation change from Grant McCann.
The game fizzled out in the half an hour of the game with Doncaster having the better of the play but they didn't really test keeper Nick Townsend that much. Most of the Doncaster play came around the center circle as they tried to get back the County defence.
We seen a couple of debuts towards the end as new summer signings Nathan Wood and Lewis Payne entered the pitch for a small cameo at the end of the game.
I feel like this was one of the best County performances in a long long while we looked like we would score everytime we went forward especially in the first half. Our pressing and counter pressing forced Donny into a number of errors and one even lead to the opener from SPH. It will be tough to repeat the same performance levels on Tuesday against Crewe after a lot of the players have played 3 games of football in 7 days but what today does is it lays down a marker for Graham Coughlan and his side who have been written of by a number of people before a single ball was kicked.
For further analysis on the game listen to Look Back In Amber tomorrow from 2pm on Newport city radio with myself and Stephen Howell.
Newport County: Nick Townsend, Adam Lewis, Ryan Delaney, Will Evans (Nathan Wood), Bryn Morris, Scot Bennett, Shane McLoughlin (Lewis Payne), Harry Charsley (Matty Bondswell), Kyle Jameson, Aaron Wildig (James Waite), Seb Palmer-Houlden (Kiban Rai)
Attendance: 3989 (358)
Personal MOTM: Seb Palmer-Houlden
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