County’s promotion bid suffers

Mar 25 2008 South Wales Echo

Havant & Waterlooville 2-0 Newport County

IT is now three successive defeats for County who slid down to 11th in Blue Square South on a day that had Peter Beadle tearing out the remainder of his thinning thatch.

The County boss picked a squad of 18 to travel to Hampshire, but this was reduced to 14 with Mark Dodds unavailable following a bereavement and Paul Cochlin, Craig Hughes and Ian Hillier unable to take part after failing fitness tests.

But Beadle watched his team produce a promising display for an hour only to disintegrate following some defensive lapses.

“There is no quick fix and Saturday’s game at Bognor is the biggest of the season for us;” said the Newport manager as the prospects of reaching the promotion play-offs recedes by the day.

A communication mix-up between Lee Jarman and Jason Bowen allowed Havant to take full advantage and an unmarked Charlie Henry fired them into a 60th minute lead.

County’s hopes suffered a terminal blow six minutes later when Andy Gurney pulled down Rocky Baptiste who was through on goal leaving referee Carl Berry no option but to show a red card to the defender and award a spot-kick which Baptiste scored in style.