"Anyone could get us out of the Pub League"

unthinkable, frightening etc etc

thank-you Paul Buckle, Paul Bristow, the players, the board and anyone else who deserves some credit for the most pivotal season I have ever experienced in 34 years of supporting the Gulls

I popped along to Kenilworth Road last night to check up on Toddy, as I did with Tarzan and Sills last season when I had the chance.

I was rather impressed with Newport as a BSP side - probably not good enough to get promoted but certainly good enough to stay up. Luton played a variation on a 4-4-2 formation with a standard back four, three midfield players and right-winger Claude Gnapka pushing forward to support the front two of Matthew Barnes-Homer and Kevin Gallen. Newport countered with a 4-2-3-1 formation but altered it to include the classic defensive midfielder in front of the back four but with a creative, quarterback-type midfielder - the ex Man Utd youth player Danny Rose - alongside him. In front of them were a deep-lying forward, Craig Reid, and two nippy wingers with one lumbering striker up front.

I think it was this imaginative midfield formation that over-powered the Luton midfield and shackled its creativity. Luton's width usually comes from Gnapka on the right and overlapping full-back Murray on the left but Murray rarely got forward in the first half at all. I had expected the mobility of Barnes-Homer and the guile of wily veteran Gallen to pull the Newport central defence apart but that didn't happen. Toddy took the right side of central defence, Warren the left and they marked whoever came into view.

In the first half, Toddy mostly had Gallen to mark and dealt comfortably with anything that was offered to him with some very well-timed tackles and a lot of shepherding away from danger. Barnes-Homer missed a string of chances, with the Newport keeper making some great saves but apart from those Luton didn't threaten much. In the second half, Luton tried the aerial bombardment route and the sight of Toddy heading anything within 5 yards of him well clear of the area almost brought a tear of nostalgia to my eye. Remember Histon away in the play-offs? It was just like that all over again.

Newport took a deserved lead after 25 mins following a five-minute spell of control. Their speedy forward play was creating holes in Luton's defence and eventually the pressure told when a corner was headed out to Charlie Henry on the left. He cut inside, taking the ball past a couple of players and hit a low shot from 20+ yards straight through the busy area and past the keeper. Luton equalised a few minutes later from a corner that wasn't cleared and when the ball bounced to central defender Zdenek Kroca, he turned to knock it home from about 6 yards. Luton were awarded a penalty with just under 20 mins left when sub Danny Crow was tripped by Rose but Barnes-Homer's kick was weak and too close to the keeper who made an easy save.

I felt that Luton's performance lacked fight, one thing we know that you need to get out of the BSP. Apart from Keane and ex-Stevenage Drury in midfield, they don't seem to want to battle for the ball and this is certainly their weakness up front and in defence. They seem to expect to win by playing pretty football and almost as a consequence they give the ball away too easily. By contrast, Newport fought for every ball and despite not having much size in their team they were winning tackles more often than not

Towards the end of the game when Luton began to panic and lose their organisation, there were times when Newport could have snatched the win but they somehow failed to realise this and preferred to take the ball into the corner to wind down time, from as early as the 83rd minute! This was even as they played the last five minutes with an extra man, Luton's Keith Keane having been dismissed for his second booking.

Luton were the better footballing team but that alone won't win enough games at this level and Newport were very good value for their point. Their tactics were more imaginative than Luton's and were the reason that Luton couldn't swamp the County area and bully them into conceding goals. I was impressed by Toddy's leadership and performance and its good to see him enjoying his football.

I didn't take any big lenses, so no pics from me, but if you want to see some there are a few on the Luton Town website including one of Toddy going in where it hurts:
www.lutontown.co.uk/page/MatchAction/0,,10372~2133693,00.html

One other point is that Newport's Kerry Morgan has got to be the shortest player I've ever seen - I reckon he's even shorter than Danny Stevens. A bit of rooting around the web reveals that Danny stands at anything from 5ft 1 to 5ft 10 (no chance ;D) and Morgan from 5ft 3 to 5ft 9. I'd be very interested if anyone has any definitive measurements to establish who is shorter. "Rothmans"/Sky Yearbook has Morgan (on loan from Swansea) as 5 ft 10, but Keane towered over him and he's listed as 5ft 9 from a couple of years ago, so that's not right..