COUNTY V WEALDSTONE (FA Trophy semi-final, tomorrow, KO 3pm)

NEWPORT County boss Justin Edinburgh is wary of Ryman Premier Wealdstone and the stats of their season make it clear why.

The Stones have lost just six of their last 38 league and FA Trophy games and have already knocked out two Conference sides on route to Spytty Park.

They have lost only once in their last 19, including victories over Barrow and Cambridge United, prompting Edinburgh to sound the warning.

“We’ve watched Wealdstone and they are a good side, they’d have to be or they wouldn’t have got this far,” he said.

“They are in a very competitive league that has lots of good players and we are going to have to be at our best to get through.

“I anticipate two very evenly contested games and we just need to show our qualities to get the edge.”

Wealdstone have been boosted before the clash by good luck messages from caretaker England manager Stuart Pearce and Vinnie Jones, both ex-Stones players.

Pearce played 242 times for Stones between 1979 and 1983 before being transferred to Coventry City.

It will, however, be a rather depleted Wealdstone that head to Newport with half a dozen players missing.

Connor Smith, Chris O’Leary and Alan Massey are all suspended while Alex Dyer is injured and Dominic Sterling and Tom Pett are cup tied.

The Exiles are also arguably lucky to be avoiding Britt Assombalonga who scored the Stones’ winner in their 2-1 success over Barrow. Assombalonga is a Watford loanee now at Braintree and he terrorised County on Tuesday, scoring twice in the Exiles 4-3 defeat.

Stones manager Gordon Bartlett said: “Missing six players doesn’t make it any easier going to a Conference side. They wouldn’t be two leagues above us unless they had some very good players. We hope that we will be very much in the game at half time, win, lose or draw. We want to be in a competitive situation when we come back to Grosvenor Vale.

“The players are very upbeat and the belief stems from the fantastic run we’ve been on of late. We will go there and give it our best shot.

“All we can do is try and get as many things right and hope that they have one or two problems because it will be the little things that make the difference.”

Newport are also somewhat under strength for the two-legged semi final.

New goalkeeper Karl Darlow, signed from Nottingham Forest on a one month loan, was still awaiting international clearance yesterday afternoon as the Exiles pushed to get the paperwork through in time for him to be in the squad. If they couldn’t, young goalkeeper Matthew Swann was on stand-by for a place on the bench after County mutually agreed to terminate Danny Potter’s contract on Thursday.

The Exiles are without midfielder Lee Minshull who must serve a three-game ban and cup-tied duo Andy Sandell and Ryan Charles.

However, striker Jake Reid and winger Darryl Knights are both fit to replace Charles and Sandell in the 16 and defender Andrew Hughes is back after a one-game ban.

County from: Thompson, Swann or Darlow, Rodgers, Warren, Yakubu, Baker, Hughes, Hatswell, Knights, Pipe, Rose, Porter, Foley, Jarvis, Reid, Harris, Buchanan, Jardim