Newport 3 Swansea 1
Tuesday, 28th Jan 2003 00:00

Sorry Swans Dumped Out Of Cup

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Brian Flynn made three changes from the side that defeated Lincoln at the weekend with Lee Jenkins, Paul Reid and Jamie Wood replacing Michael Howard, Lenny Johnrose and John Williams.

The Swans could have been up as early as 30 seconds into the game when Jamie Wood crossed from the right and the ball was met by Thomas who fired over from close range. As the wind swirled around Newport Stadium, the home side were given a boost after 4 minutes when Shepherd curled in a ball looking for Eckhart. The former Cardiff man missed his header but with the wind holding the ball up, it curled into the corner of the net much to the surprise of Roger.

Swansea, despite being shell shocked by this setback, hit back almost immediately and should have scored twice before eventually equalising. Both 'should have' chances fell to Thomas. The first saw him played through by Reid and as he cut inside to face Mountain in the Newport goal he pulled his shot wide and just a minute later he saw a hard shot saved by the Newport keeper. However, it took just one more minute for the Swans to be level. Jenkins broke down the left wing and his cross found Wood at the far side of the area. Wood took one step inside and curled a superb shot into the corner of the net to put the Swans level.

With just 10 minutes gone, this was a superb cup tie but sadly Swansea were unable to build on that moment and in the 27th minute they found themselves a goal down again. It was Shepherd again who was the provider sliding a ball into the run of Ashington who hit his shot under Roger and into the net.

Newport could have extended their lead on 36 minutes when Billy Clark had a shot from 12 yards out which was blocked on the line by Tate with Swansea' s best effort from thereon in coming from Jenkins who cut in from the left and hit a shot straight at Mountain from the edge of the area.

Flynn made one change at half-time bringing on Steve Watkin for the largely ineffective Nugent and the Swans had two half chances in the first ten minutes of the second half - from Mumford and Britton that were saved by Mountain in the Swansea goal.

After those two chances, Swansea looked like a team defeated despite their being over half an hour to play. Newport were first to most balls and despite plenty of Swansea pressure any decent chance was usually followed with a pass rather than a shot at goal. Comically Williams came on halfway through the half and almost immediately made an impact but his shot sailed across the front of the goal where Watkin wasn't - Williams deciding that the shot was so bad he should claim it as a pass and berate Watkin for not being there. This for me summed up Swansea's poor effort in the second half.

Flynn made his final substitution with ten minutes left, bringing on Stiens for Jenkins but almost immediately saw the game killed off as Smith was far too slow to a loose ball and allowed Shephard to run through and beat Roger in a 1 on 1 situation. For me this capped a bad night for Smith - twice there was a breakdown in communication between captain and goalkeeper and it is easy to see why we find clean sheets so hard to keep this season with a defence in disarray.

Reid was booked for Swansea in the last five minutes and Fowler for Newport in stoppage time which led to Tate limping off the field - we need him fit for Saturday.

The referee called a halt after the one minute of stoppage time and Newport were deserved winners. For ten minutes at the start of the game we looked a decent team but for the other eighty you would suggest that Newport were comfortably the better side.

This was a step down from Saturday and whilst league survival is far more important a win here would have increased confidence. I hope that Flynn shows this performance back to the team and points out some of the basics where we go wrong. Defence and keeper need to work on communication, Swansea need to want the ball - too often we wait for it instead of looking for it and sometimes we just have to remember that we will NOT walk the ball into the back of the net.

Onwards and Upwards for Newport - back to the drawing board for us.

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