Newport County are on the brink of a mouth-watering FAW Premier Cup quarter-final showdown with one of the top sides in Welsh football.

A draw at Bangor City tonight (7.30pm) will be enough for Peter Nicholas' side to progress to the last eight - a feat that will land County a welcome pre-Christmas bonus of £15,000.

And the prize for Newport's players, if they don't lose at Farrar Road, is a clash in front of their own fans with either the multi-millionaires of Cardiff City, Division Three promotion-chasers Wrexham, cash-strapped fellow Division Three strugglers Swansea City or Welsh double-winners Barry Town.

The Exiles seemed to be chasing Bangor's tails until the Citizens' shock home defeat by Connah's Quay Nomads, and now manager Nicholas is urging his players to take advantage and earn themselves a night to remember.

"Connah's Quay did us a favour in defeating Bangor, now we must take advantage of that," said Nicholas, whose side are second in Group B behind runaway leaders TNS, a point ahead of Bangor.

The Newport boss pledged: "We will play our normal game. Because we only need a draw people might expect us to sit back and hold on to what we've got, but that isn't the case. That is a very dangerous ploy as we will leave ourselves open for a Bangor onslaught.

"We will go out to win, there's no question about that."

County reached the quarter-finals last year, losing 3-0 to Swansea City where, at the time, Nicholas was Colin Addison's assistant. Newport also played against league opposition in last term's FA Cup first round proper, where they were valiantly defeated by Blackpool in extra-time of a replay.

County, dumped out of the lucrative FA Cup this campaign by lower-league Team Bath, are desperate to make amends in the FAW Premier competition. Tonight, the Dr Martens Premier League side welcome back centre-half Billy Clark but winger Richard French (ankle), striker Neil Davis (knee) and defender Steve Benton (ankle) are missing.

Bangor, last season's Welsh Cup runners-up, are without striker and long-term injury victim Paul Roberts and midfielder Owain Tudor-Jones while centre-back Huw Griffiths and winger Gareth Williams return after knocks.

Newport County (from) P Mountain, J Perry, B Clark, A Thomas, S Walker, M Fowler, M Rose, N Davies, R Ashington, R Plant, G Shephard, L Stanton, J Eckhardt, J Dupres, G Jones, C Rogers, A Stevenson, T Hart

Bangor City (from) Priestley, Blackmore, Goodall, E Jones, Rowlands, Short, Moores, Evans, Jefferies, Fenton, Burgess, Hunt, Sellers, Williams, Griffiths.