Newtown 3, Sidmouth Town Res 5

Sidmouth returned from Newtown in Exeter with their seventh straight away game and fifth win on the spin, writes Nick Ogden.

The Vikings went ahead after 16 minutes when Tom Perryman curled a 25-yarder into the corner and things looked comfortable. Unfortunately, it wasn't to last and, within five minutes, the hosts had levelled things after some hesitancy at the back. Worse was to follow when the ref awarded them a penalty, but, thankfully, Jack Burgess pulled off a fine save and instead of being 2-1 down within minutes they were 2-1 up as a penalty was dispatched at the other end by Kev Dorman.

Early in the second half the game went from strange to stranger, as, firstly Newtown had a man sent off for elbowing, before scoring two goals to lead 3-2.

Sidmouth were looking badly out of sorts and, having lost the influential Nick Gingell early with a hamstring injury, they then lost top scorer Dorman and it seemed they couldn't string any passes together at all.

Thankfully, they have several other match- winners and, in the last 30 minutes, it became the Tom Perryman show when he scored from the spot, then with a thunderous strike and finished off with a glancing header to really finish off a fine Man of the Match performance.

Manager Nick Ogden was a little confused by the game and said: " There were some very odd decisions in the game and the constant stop start didn't do either side any favours but we can, and will, play much much better than that.

“The injuries really affected us and we took our time getting over them but once they started to feed Perryman, Sidmouth looked a totally different side and he absolutely destroyed them and deserved his four goals.”

“It makes the final three games very interesting because both Dorman and Perryman are level on goals scored so theres a little battle going on there.

In the end, it’s about results not performance now, so in that respect, we can only take positives and build on them. Saturday sees Sidmouth face Newtown at home and I hope it’s an easier game for my nerves than this one was."

The win keeps the Vikings in the promotion places.