Newport drop out of play-off places after a damaging defeat

NEWPORT County dropped out of the League 2 play-off places after conceding two first-half goals and just failing to find the extra goal they needed in a frantic finish to salvage a point.

County boss James Rowberry knew Easter wasn’t going to be a holiday for his promotion-chasing side with two games against teams just bubbling under the play-off places, but he couldn’t have imagined a more miserable start.

There was nothing good about this Friday for the first half-hour, in which time the visitors plundered a two-goal lead. Not only that, they comprehensively outthought, out-fought and outplayed County.

The visitors arrived in good form having won three of their last four games and obviously believed they could make up the 12-point gap between themselves in 12th and County in the last of the playoff places.

The home jitters were there from the start, even though the first shot of the game came after a sweeping move from back to front by County that ended with Finn Azaz forcing a save low down by Crawley keeper Glenn Morris.

From there, the first half simply went from bad to worse for Rowberry’s men in arguably their worst opening 45 minutes of the season.

Poor defending allowed a deep cross from the right to be headed on by Kwesi Appiah and Ashley Nadesan to pick up the pieces to tap home.

If that was a shoddy goal to concede, the next was even worse four minutes later. A senseless pass across their own box conceded possession once again and James Waite wiped out Appiah with a

NEWPORT CO....................1 CRAWLEY TOWN..............2

shoulder charge to concede a freekick 20 yards out.

The wall did its job in clearing the immediate danger, but Crawley got a corner for their troubles. Nadesan and Appiah combined with real skill before the ball was squared across to Ludwig Francillette, whose low strike beat Joe Day to make it 2-0.

County were stunned, the big Easter crowd were shell-shocked and the promotion plans were in tatters.

There were a few half-chances, a Dom Telford half-volley and a mad scramble in the Crawley goalmouth after some good work on the right flank, but there was simply no fluency or authority in anything Newport did.

A half-time dressing down, and the introduction just before the hour mark of Rob Street up front brought about an upturn in fortunes and there was greater urgency and purpose to the home side’s play in the second half.

Space was found for Telford to run into and when he picked up a ball down the right touchline he was able to run to the edge of the area and play the cross to Waite, who gave his side a lifeline in the 59th minute with a much-needed goal.

Azaz twice produced some trickery before firing off shots that were just off target and then a Telford attempt to shoot over the keeper from 35 yards required a very smart save.

Street had a chance to level in the 83rd minute, but sent it wide and then a Mickey Demetriou thunderbolt was pushed over by Morris.