By Gareth James
Newport County will be hoping to end 2020 on a high by getting back to winning ways against Exeter City at Rodney parade tonight.
A blip in form of late has seen their lead at the top of League Two cut to a single point, but for the majority of the first-half of this strange season Michael Flynn’s men have been simply magnificent.
Flynn will want to see his side move into 2021 as the leaders of the pack chasing promotion. A run of four home matches, three of which are in the league, will at least give them a great chance of ending a run of four games without a win.
Last weekend’s 1-1 draw at Crawley Town was a disappointing result against a side reduced to 10 men for the final 30 minutes and once again underlined the lack of ability to put teams away.
Crossing over into the New Year, Flynn’s side need to discover a killer instinct that can carry them into the third tier of professional football for the first time in 34 years.
It was only Carlisle United’s amazing capitulation at home against Bolton last weekend, when they surrendered a three goal lead to draw 3-3, that enabled County to stat top of the table and Exeter will arrive hoping to close the seven point gap that currently exists between them and Flynn’s men with a game in hand.
The Grecians drew 1-1 with second place Forest Green Rovers at the weekend and are one place behind Salford City, who travel to Rodney Parade to meet County next week, in seventh. A bit like Newport, they have won only once in their last five games.
Home form has been at the heart of County’s success so far this season with 22 points taken from 27 to date.
But they lost their unbeaten record last time out against Oldham Athletic and need to reassert their authority on their own turf to keep heading in the right direction.
One player who has been key to the success to date has been goalkeeper Nick Townsend, who has kept six clean sheets in the league.
He picked up a knee injury at Crawley as he scrambled back to try to keep Mickey Demetriou’s back header out of the goal.
He was replaced by Wales squad member Tom King, who looks set to continue as Townsend recovers.
“The injury was to Nick’s kicking leg, so we took him off. He might have tweaked a ligament on the outside of his knee,” said assistant manager Wayne Hatswell after the Crawley game.
Exeter will arrive having notched 40 goals already this season, the most by any team in the league, and in Matt Jay and Ryan Bowman, they have twin threats who have scored 18 goals between them this season.
By contrast, on loan midfielder Scott Twine is County’s leading scorer to date in the league with six goals. A few more from the front runners wouldn’t go amiss in 2021.
“We should have won the game at Crawley, we just couldn’t quite find that cutting edge. It was two points dropped and maybe on a different day we would win that game 3-1 or 4-1,” said Hatswell.
“It’s a tough division and we go again with two big home games against Exeter and Southend this week. It is an unprecedented season with the number of games we are trying to fit in.
“We are still top of the league, we are in the right place and there are no trophies handed out for good runs. We want to be there and thereabouts.
“We need to turn this away point into a good performance at home. There are a lot of games coming up.”