Bonner beams at Cambridge display

Posted Sunday, February 09, 2020 by PA

Cambridge interim head coach Mark Bonner was delighted with his side’s 1-0 victory over Newport at Rodney Parade – their first away win in 11 games.

Newport dominated the majority of the game, but a 68th-minute winner from Liam O’Neil secured all three points for the visitors.

And Bonner, who has won his first two games as interim boss since the sacking of Colin Calderwood, believes there is more to come from his side.

He said: “I said in the week I expected us to get points and I wanted to win the game.

“We are delighted to go home with the win and three points. It wasn’t pretty, but we did know it was going to be a very different game to last Saturday.

“Fair play to the boys, they put in some shift and I’m absolutely delighted with the victory. We earned a little bit of luck tonight defensively and we are really happy with our goal and one or two other counter-attacking moments.

“We’ve got to try and add a bit more quality and composure to the game when we are defending like that as well.

“I said to the boys at half-time, it’s all well and good being like that in the first half but, similar to last week the grit and drive and backbone was excellent.”

Newport came close on two occasions in the first half, with Jamille Matt forcing a save from Callum Burton and Ryan Inniss heading just wide after being found unmarked.

Despite Newport being in the ascendancy, O’Neil nudged Cambridge ahead when he rolled the ball into the back of the net after an initial shot by Paul Mullin deflected off goalkeeper Tom King into his path.

Newport manager Michael Flynn was left stunned by his side’s performance.

He said: “I’m a little bit shell-shocked at what I’ve just seen,” said Flynn.

“We were very poor. Let’s be honest, it was two poor teams.

“They had a game plan and I told the players at half-time, they’ve come for a draw and the only way they’re going to score is something poor from us, and we went and gave it to them.

“It’s exactly how I said it would be at half-time. I didn’t see that performance coming.

“You can play well and lose to a counter, but we were way off it today. The performance was nowhere near what we expect, what we worked on, and nowhere near the levels that the players have been at lately.”