Saturday 28 March 2015 19:17, UK
Wayne Hatswell thought Newport pulled off the perfect game plan, underlining their play-off credentials with a 2-0 victory at Accrington.
The Exiles assistant manager revealed his travelling side had arrived in east Lancashire with the objective of being hard to beat before hitting Stanley on the break, which is exactly what they did with a pair of second-half goals. Their opener was the result of a huge stroke of fortune as Max Porter's 66th-minute cross somehow went under goalkeeper Scott Davies' body and inside his near post, with striker Aaron O'Connor claiming after the game he had in fact not touched the ball to divert it beyond the stopper. Newport then wrapped up the points with a classic counter-attack in second-half stoppage time as substitute Shaun Jeffers tapped in Ismail Yakubu's pull across to lift Jimmy Dack's men up to fifth ahead of Saturday's round of fixtures. "It's a fantastic win, well-deserved and hard fought," said Hatswell. "We said before the game we had to stay in the game. We started really well and at half-time we said we had done the hard bit by defending well first half. We set ourselves up for the second-half performance, which we got. "We wanted to be a bit more attacking in the second half and hit them on the break. We just stifled them, I think. In a lot of areas we were man-for-man and we probably frustrated them. We had to go in at half-time 0-0 so we had a chance to get something in the second half. Thankfully we did. "You're going to have to battle when you come to Accrington Stanley on a Friday night. We prepared really well all week because we knew this was going to be a tough game, irrelevant of how well or not well they've been doing. "They've made it hard for us but fair credit to our lads they've stuck to it, defended when they had to. Everyone tonight from front to back has put in a good shift and they deserve the weekend off." Stanley manager John Coleman conceded Davies' blunder, which may ultimately end up going down as an own goal, changed the dynamics of a game which extended Accrington's winless run to seven matches. "We've murdered them for 40 minutes," Coleman stressed. "They haven't got anywhere near our goal, they've settled for a 0-0. It's whether we're going to win it and then we've presented them with the game. "But I was disappointed with the response after we scored that goal for them. "You can train all week, you can put the best team in the world out but if your keeper can't deal with a routine ball at the near post... "He hasn't done it on purpose, he's a good keeper, but he had nothing to do. When he has had something to do, he's fluffed his lines."
