Manager Michael Flynn Hoping For Birthday Treat

Newport County have hit a rich vein of form and are intent on stepping up the pace even more.

They have earned back-to-back wins, kept successive clean sheets and are in the League Two top six.

Colchester United are visitors to Rodney Parade on Tuesday (7.45pm) before Mansfield Town arrive in South Wales this Saturday.

Manager Michael Flynn celebrates his 37th birthday on the day Colchester are in Newport and says: “Hopefully the boys will get me a win.”

County have beaten Yeovil (2-0) and Forest Green (4-0) in their last two fixtures, while striker Padraig Amond his goals tally to six for the season.

Shawn McCoulsky, a 20-year-old forward on loan from Bristol City, has five goals, while Frank Nouble is on five, but hasn’t found the net since August.

“I chased Podge all summer and that’s why,” said Flynn.

“He has six goals now. He’s the club’s top scorer and our highest scorer last season only had seven so if he doesn’t beat that then I’ll probably release him!”

“I put Shawn on and I told him he’d score. He has five goals now.

“He’s raw and has lots to learn, but he’s getting in the right places and scoring goals.”

County played Joss Labadie in an attacking role behind the front two of Amond and Nouble at Forest Green. He is likely to stick with the trio, while Scott Bennett will again partner Ben White and Mickey Demetriou at the heart of defence.

Flynn has kept the same starting XI for the last two games and is tempted to back the same 11 again. He will, though, assess how his players are going into a second match in four days.

Colchester slipped to 16th in the table after a 1-0 home defeat to Carlisle United and captain Frankie Kent says they will have to improve if they are to earn any reward at Rodney Parade.

The U’s have won only four of their 13 league fixtures so far and now face successive away games at Newport and Coventry.

“We want to go to Newport, put in a good solid performance and a better performance,” said Kent.

“We weren’t really cute enough to get through them and I feel like we were pretty one-dimensional.

“We didn’t really get the ball wide enough to our creative players and it felt like everything was straight down the middle.

“We didn’t play to our strengths and it came back to haunt us.”

Newport County, probable: Day, Demetriou, Bennett, White, Butler, Tozer, Dolan, Pipe, Labadie, Nouble, Amond. Bench: Bittner (gk), Barnum-Bobb, Rigg, Reynolds, Owen-Evans, McCoulsky, O’Brien, Quigley.

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