Bath City 2 Newport County 3

'SECONDS away, round three.'

Newport County put Bath on the ropes and finished them off convincingly to knock City out of the FA Trophy in the season's third meeting between the two sides.

The two local rivals know each other well, many of the players have represented both clubs in recent seasons, but this tie had extra spice.

For those of you not aware, County beat Bath 1-0 at Newport Stadium at the start of September amid some very physical football with Bath's Bradley Thomas and James Zabek being dismissed.

Bath had their revenge by beating County 2-1 in October's return at Twerton Park, depite Newport having most of the possession, pressure and territory, but missing the essential ingredient of finishing.

So the two sides faced each other again at Twerton with a place in the second round of the FA Trophy at stake.

With the Newport having stuttered and lurched their way through the season so far, things took a huge up-turn last Monday when on a special night for the club, County booked themselves a trip to sunny Blackpool in the first round proper of the FA Cup after beating Nationwide Conference side Woking 3-1.

This is the furthest the club has gone in the competition since they were reformed in 1989, but while the financial rewards are significant the real benefit of that win was there for all to see against Bath on Saturday.

Newport have a spring in their step and this was a confident and comfortable win with goals coming from their in-form players Martin Paul, Darren Ryan and Garry Shephard.

But for a mysterious late penalty this should have been a convincing 3-1 win and despite Bath opening the scoring thanks to a Newport blunder, County won well.

Both sides snapped out of a fairly dull opening spell after some poor communication.

Defender Billy Clark left a loose ball in defence for keeper Pat Mountain to clear up, while Mountain left the ball for Clark and as the pair dithered Bath's Adrian Foster nipped in and scored with 19 minutes gone.

City returned the compliment less than two minutes later when defender Colin Towler pushed the ball too far ahead of himself, County's Paul took advantage and twisted onto his prefered right foot to drive the ball low past Bath keeper Mark Hervin.

Darren Ryan, the former Merthyr Tyfdil player is making the left side of midfield his own and he produced another freekick 'special' past Hervin to put his side ahead.

With former Bath player Scott Walker on the bench, Ryan is certainly earning his place in the side on merit.

Finding themselves 2-1 up at half-time, County had to prove themselves in defence with Jeff Eckhardt and Billy Clark keeping Bath out, ably supported by Andrew Thomas and Steve Benton.

Eckhardt robbed possession from City's Paul Milsom deep in the penalty area and is growing in confidence at the heart of the County defence.

The game's tempo dropped in the second half, until Shephard produced a moment of pure magic late in the game.

Gathering the ball on the edge of the Bath penalty area and spotting Hervin just off his line, Shephard chipped the ball into the net for a goal Mr Beckham would be pleased to have claimed.

With the tie won, Newport conceded a late penalty late which Jamie Gosling converted to make the final score 3-2.

Bath come back to Spytty Park on November 12 for the Dr Martens League Cup match, but on this sort of showing County need not fear.

* Newport now travel to Walton and Hersham in the second round of the FA on December 1 after the Surrey side won 4-1 at Chippenham.

* In the picture: Newport's Martin Paul runs at the Bath City defence.