NEWPORT County boss Justin Edinburgh has expressed his disappointment at losing star striker Aaron O’Connor for up to two months, but has made it clear he’s 100 per cent behind the player going under the knife.

As revealed in Saturday’s Argus, O’Connor’s long-running groin injury has flared up again and he will now have an operation, ideally in the next 48 hours, to finally solve the issue.

He was forced off on Tuesday at Taunton despite scoring a 38th-minute hat trick and his 20 goals in the Conference last term saw clubs from Leagues One and Two queuing up to sign him this summer.

However, his relationship with boss Edinburgh and rapport with his team-mates saw O’Connor opt to stay and Edinburgh believes the only way to get him back to his best is to get him operated on as soon as possible.

“The club and the player made the call last season to treat the injury by means of rest and an injection, that was the right call for us at the time and helped him to get through the season and us to gain promotion,” Edinburgh explained.

“It was the correct decision looking back but now it wouldn’t be, the club, myself and Aaron have made the decision it will be operated on.

“We’ll get him in early this week if we can and then take it from there.

“You can look back in hindsight and say we should have done it earlier, but he came back and looked great and scored a hat trick, but the problem has come back.

“We know we’ll get him back in four to eight weeks and he’ll be good to go.”

The Exiles fared well without O’Connor on Saturday, winning 3-0 at Conference South side Havant and Waterlooville.

Lee Minshull and an own goal put the Exiles 2-0 up before David Pipe scored a 30-yard thunderbolt.

And the County captain was thrilled to finally score for the Exiles, having failed to strike a single time in 79 competitive appearances in amber.

“I had to let one rip sometime and when you haven’t scored for as long as me, when you do get one it has to be special,” he said.

“I just hope someone, somewhere, was videoing it because I don’t get many like that, to say the least.”

Pipe was delighted with a good workout.

“It was a long trip for us and that’s good, it prepares you for the season ahead because we’ll have many long trips,” he said.

“I thought in the second half we were dominant, the boys have worked extremely hard in pre-season and hopefully that’s going to show once the season starts.

“We step it up now against Reading (tomorrow, Spytty Park, kick-off 7.30pm) and then against Villa (Sunday, Rodney Parade, kick-off 3pm) and we’ll be raring to go.”

l Havant v County match report and pictures on pages 24 & 25