Flynn pleased with Newport character after victory over Bradford

Posted Sunday, February 23, 2020 by PA

Michael Flynn paid tribute to the character shown by his side as the bounced back from last weekend’s defeat at Mansfield and their Football League Trophy disappointment with a 2-1 win over Bradford at Rodney Parade.

Two first-half goals from Ryan Inniss and Scot Bennett was enough to earn all three points for Flynn’s side.

“I’m absolutely delighted for those players because they worked their hearts out for this football club,” said Flynn.

“This result means more for those players than it does for me. They’ve had a bit of bad luck over the last few weeks.

“We should have beaten Walsall and Salford but it didn’t happen, meaning our confidence was down. They thoroughly deserved this win.

“We showed good resilience to come back from 1-0 down. We conceded a sloppy goal and I said to Ryan Innis before the game that I’ve been in football a long time and it’s funny how it works out because on Wednesday night he was devastated.

“He was the one who missed the penalty (against Salford in the Football League Trophy), blah blah blah but I told him it’s funny how it works out because if you believe in yourself it can happen for you and he did.”

It was the visitors who took the lead in the 26th minute when striker Clayton Donaldson’s powerful header left Tom King helpless to put Bradford into the lead.

But the Exiles hit straight back on 28 minutes with Josh Sheehan flicking the ball onto Innis, who hacked the delivery past Bradford goalkeeper Richard O’Donnell to level the scores.

And the hosts took the lead on 33 minutes when Bennett fired a volley into the bottom left-hand corner.

Newport were given a warning just before half-time when King only just managed to tap an ambitious shot from Glenn Middleton over the crossbar meaning the Exiles turned around with a 2-1 lead.

Bradford applied a lot of pressure in the second-half but Newport’s defence remained intact to secure a vital win. And Bradford manager Stuart McCall was bitterly disappointed with his sides’ performance.

He said: “I think the game came down to not being clinical enough.

“They took their chances while we didn’t take ours and that was the difference between both sides. They were very good with long throws and corners but we didn’t cope with them well.

“To go a goal up was a great start but to concede a few as we did wasn’t good enough and you’ll never win football games playing like that. Newport are a very good side and this is a tough place to come but we should have done better.

“We were too fragile defensively at times and should have dealt with them better.”