Once again a beautiful sunny day greeted the teams at St. Georges Park and the conditions again allowed a game of fast flowing football.

Sholing arrived on the back of straight wins in all their friendlies so far and brought a large squad that allowed them to field two different teams either side of the break.

Sholing were the first team to score as the game approached the half hour mark. Newport were not outclassed by their opponents from the higher league although the physical presence of some of their players was evident. Darren Powell had agreat chance to equalise with a header which went narrowly wide. Newport's equaliser when it came was top quality football. Good work down the left hand side by Graham Stay had seen the ball played into the Sholing box, which they only half cleared. The ball fell to Iain Seabrook just outside the area who volleyed it back straight into the top corner.

Half Time: Newport 1 Sholing 1

The break saw both teams make major changes to their teams and Sholing completely changed theirs. The introduction of Kevin Gibbons and Barry Mason up front started to give problems to the Port defence. It was Barry Mason who was the first to score as he outpaced the Newport defence and cleverly lobbed the advancing keeper.

With 25 minutes to go, Derek Ohren introduced Tom Dunford who was released by Southampton in May. The youngster who is currently looking for a full time club has been training with the Port during the summer. It didn't take long for his talent to shine through. Cutting inside a defender his low drive beat the keeper at the near post to make it 2-2.

With both sides looking as though they wanted to win it was Sholing who were to get the final goal. From a corner on the right hand side Kevin Gibbons was on hand to head past Cameron Farley and take the honours.

Full Time: Newport 2 Sholing 3