Newport City
Match Report
Losing this crucial Friday night game under the Newport Stadium floodlights leaves us just one game in which to maintain our Cymru South status. City took the lead on 13 minutes when from a Celtic tackle the ball fell kindly to Danny Hillman whose shot from the edge of the penalty box skimmed its way into the corner of the net. City’s 2nd goal in the 82nd minute came from a cross from the right by Sing which Mackenzie Thompson headed home at the far post.
Despite the scoreline, we held their own throughout the game and had chances – in the 1st half, a Larcombe half chance shot went wide and a van Dieren header was also wide from a corner. In the 2nd half a smart bout of interplay started by Joe Bowen ended with the midfielder’s shot from close range being smothered by keeper Riella. For Newport, Sing grazed the bar late on.
In the other critical games on Friday Afan Lido won and are safe. Goytre United lost and they are now down. This afternoon Penrhiwceiber Rangers drew with Ammanford. Us and Rangers go into their final games next Saturday neck and neck. Celtic have a 3-goal better goal difference and they have scored more goals than Rangers so if the teams match each other with their results next Saturday and so finish level on points, and provided Rangers don’t pull the goal difference back by 4 goals, we will stay up.
We have the advantage of a home game – against Llantwit Major. Rangers play at Carmarthen Town who are unbeaten in their last 7 home games. However, Rangers are the form team having taken 9 points from their last 6 games compared with our 4. The situation really couldn’t be tighter.