Newport County sealed a 2-0 win at Salisbury with a blistering first-half display before battening down the hatches after having defender Steve Benton sent off.

Salisbury are rooted to the bottom of the Dr Martens League Premier Division and County certainly put them to the sword in a brilliant first half as they created seven clear chances.

The game changed on 52 minutes when Newport's Steve Benton fouled City's Robbie Speakman who was clear on goal, as Benton became the first County player sent off in just over a year.

City came back into the game playing against ten men, but Newport held on for their second successive win after Saturday's 2-1 defeat of Welling and are now just four points off the leaders, despite being tenth.

Manager Tim Harris was pleased with County's professional performance in knuckling down to defend after an impressive opening 45 minutes, but had no complaints with the dismissal.

He said: "It was an excellent first half performance, our build-up and delivery was as good as it has been.

"I don't think Salisbury could have complained if they had been 4-0 down at half-time." With four clear chances in the first 14 minutes, Newport attacked the game with hunger and Harris said he was pleased with the team's performance despite missing injured midfielders Stuart James and Scott Walker.

After just eight minutes, striker Garry Shephard found himself with an open goal and had his shot cleared off the line, then defender Ryan Souter put his header just over. With quality chances like this being created, a goal had to come and it did on 10 minutes. Salisbury's defence again failed to clear a ball played into the penalty area and Matt Rose had a simple tap in.

County did not ease up the pressure and with confidence growing Shephard ran at the heart of the home defence, but his shot went wide, just after Scott Griffin's strike clipped the bar.

With barely half an hour gone, County went 2-0 up after Griffin swung in a corner. Billy Clark headed against the bar and Jeff Eckhardt volleyed into the back of the net off the crossbar.

It really was all one-way traffic and when Griffin hit the post from 30 yards shortly after, it looked like Salisbury were going to suffer a thrashing.

It never materialised as County dropped the tempo after half-time and after Benton's sending off, Salisbury had chances through Tyrone Bowers and Darren Crook which they could not finish.

Harris moved Eckhardt from striker to centre-back, operating with just Shephard up front and Newport looked solid in defence, with Clark and Ryan Souter impressive. More performances like this and talk of promotion will sound less hollow.

*PICTURED: Newport County's Jeff Eckhardt challeneges for the ball with Salisbury's Ben Madgewick