Wimborne reverted to a four man back row as new signing Steve Gilbert made his debut alongside Dan Haysom, with James Wilson and Sam Lockyer returning to their normal full back positions. Kev James, Liam Green, James Stokoe and Ben Thomson made up the midfield with Gareth Barnes and Lee Chudy up front and Nick Hutchings in goal. Tommy McCormick, Steve Whitcher, Tom Clarke, John Wyatt and Al Walker-Harris started on the bench.
Steve Gilbert announced his arrival within four minutes when he rose above the crowd to head Wimborne into the lead from Ben Thomson’s corner. But the initiative then passed to the visitors who dominated the play for the next half hour. After fifteen minutes they drew level with a near post header, and threatened to do more. The newly formed Wimborne back line were pretty stretched, but they hung on well enough to restrict Newport’s scoring opportunities.
Within the space of five minutes the game was transformed. On 35 minutes a great piece of footwork by James Stokoe gave him the space to put in a low cross which Lee Chudy at the near post deflected into the far corner of the net. Two minutes later a cross from Kev James reached Chudy on the near corner of the six yard box, but his glancing header didn’t have the pace to beat the keeper at the near post. Then, on 40 minutes, Chudy collected a through ball on the edged of the area, and held off the close attention of a defender to take the ball closer and place it past the keeper for his third goal of the week.
The second half was a fairly dour affair with few chances created at either end. Wimborne had more of the play, with some good approach work, with no real cutting edge against a well organised defence.
The major event of the half, on 62 minutes, was of the more unsavoury type. As Thomson’s corner came over, Gilbert, a defender and Newport keeper Gary Streeter all tangled together in jumping for a high ball. Streeter won the ball, but as he came away with it Gilbert barged past him and Streeter responded with a kick to Gilbert’s calf. The ref had little option but to direct the keeper to the dressing room, and Gilbert added a first yellow card to his first goal for his part in the affair.
While that should have given Wimborne an advantage there was little noticeable difference, and the stand-in keeper was able to handle all that was asked of him, of which there was little. Wimborne’s closest effort was a wide free kick from Thomson which passed though a gap between Barnes’s head and the far post on it’s way to a goal kick. At the other end, Nick had a few moments of action, and late on made the best save of the game from a close range shot.
In the closing minutes Tommy McCormick, Tom Clarke and Steve Whitcher all made token appearances but had little time to influence the game, although Tommy Mac did give the keeper his only real challenge with a hard low shot after cutting in from the left.
It was a hard won three points for Wimborne against a side who were not going to give up easily. It was particularly encouraging to see Lee Chudy settling in well with two more goals and Steve Gilbert having a solid first game. James Wilson was nominated as Wimborne’s man-of-the-match.
