Great Scot! Bennett’s strike kills Bantams

NEWPORT boss Michael Flynn was pleased to see his side’s fortunes change as they registered a first win in five games.

They had to do it the hard way, though, needing first-half replies from Ryan Inniss and Scot Bennett to secure the points after Clayton Donaldson had fired Bradford in front.

“I’m absolutely delighted for those players because they worked their hearts out for this football club,” said Flynn.

“This result means more for those players than it does for me. They’ve had a bit of bad luck over the last few weeks.

“We showed good resilience to come back from a goal down.

“We conceded a sloppy goal and I said to Ryan Innis before the game that I’ve been in football a long time and it’s funny how it works out because on Wednesday night he was devastated.

“He missed a penalty, but I told him it’s funny how it works out because if you believe in yourself it can happen for you and he did.”

It was the visitors who took the lead in the 26th minute when Donaldson’s powerful header left Tom King helpless to put Bradford into a 26th-minute lead. But the Exiles hit back two minutes later with Josh Sheehan flicking the ball on to Innis, who hacked the delivery past City stopper Richard O’Donnell to level.

And the hosts took the lead just past the half-hour mark when Bennett fired in a volley into the bottom corner.

Bradford almost equalised when King only just managed to tip over a shot from Glenn Middleton. Bradford applied a lot of pressure in the second-half, but Newport’s defence remained intact to secure a vital win.

Bantams manager Stuart McCall was bitterly disappointed with his side’s display.

He said: “I think the game came down to not being clinical enough.

“They took their chances while we didn’t take ours and that was the difference. They were very good with long throws and corners, but we didn’t cope with them well.

“To go a goal up was a great start, but to concede as we did wasn’t good enough and you’ll never win games playing like that. Newport are a good side and this is a tough place to come, but we should have done better.”