Latics 3 – 0 Newport County match report: Latics rewarded for graft and craft 

After a turgid first half, Latics put Newport away comprehensively. 

Latics 3 

Hawkes 53, 89; Quigley 75 

Newport County 0 

7,056 (222) 

The first 40 minutes of this game were entirely forgettable unless you have a taste for football that lacks imagination, guile, skill and composure. You would have loved it if you like games in which neither side concedes anything, least of all their rigid shapes. 

The incident on 39 minutes on the halfway line that got Luke Hannant a booking was the first half in microcosm. Latics were passing it ponderously on their right, but the ball came loose and Newport broke. The ball wasn’t in anyone’s possession when Hannant and Newport’s Anthony Glennon converged on it. Both slid, neither really won it and the referee booked Hannant. Low-stakes nip and tuck, tough to watch. 

Latics came to life in the last five minutes of the half and throughout stoppage time at the end of it. They had a succession of corners without producing any great chances, but the message they sent about their intention to win the game was unmistakable.  

Unusually, Latics boss Micky Mellon made two substitutions at half time, bringing on Mike Fondop for Joe Garner and Kane Drummond for Luke Hannant. Garner had nothing to go on up front in the first half and Hannant was on a yellow, and the substitutions almost made themselves: Fondop and Drummond cause problems for defences even when the game isn’t going their way. 

Latics and the game looked different immediately and they made the breakthrough on 52 minutes. Drummond crossed to Michael Mellon, whose near-post header was parried by Jordan Wright in the Newport goal. The ball fell nicely for Hawkes. He’d had a couple of nothing shots in the first half but he buried this one to give his side a lead they never looked like losing.  

Latics settled, went back to grafting for the right to play, as Micky Mellon frequently puts it – you could argue that they spent the first 40 minutes doing that. It wasn’t long before Drummond had everyone out of their seats again. The ball broke to him in the Latics half and he used his pace to play himself a through-ball (you have to be really quick to play yourself in with a slide-rule ball). Every Latics fan in the ground wanted him to take it all the way, but he tried to find Mellon on his left. Mellon didn’t want to take it on and passed it back to Drummond, who was unaware that Lee Jenkins was charging in from behind to pinch it off him. 

Drummond did not break his duck today, but his contribution was decisive. He put the second goal on a plate for Joe Quigley on 74 minutes. Fondop won it with his physicality 25 yards out and found an absolutely beautiful pass to the on-running Jamie Robson. Robson overhit his cross from the left but Drummond was there on the byline to rescue it, killing the pace and cutting it back with one touch to find Quigley in space on the six-yard line. He couldn’t miss. 

Two-nothing and Newport were done. They were willing in the first half, but the adversity presented by Fondop and Drummond, together with the more dynamic pace Latics established in the second period and a two-goal deficit, killed them. 

They might have wanted it to end but Latics didn’t, and Hawkes capped off a superb performance (battling in the first half, causing bother in the second) with the goal of the game. Fondop played the ball to him as he charged into the area. With his second touch, he fired a daisy cutter across goal and into the corner. 

Oldham Athletic: Mat Hudson, Tom Pett (c) (Kai Payne 91), Donervon Daniels (Dynel Simeu 91), Manny Monthé, Ryan Woods, Joe Garner (Mike Fondop HT), Luke Hannant (Kane Drummond HT), Jake Caprice, Josh Hawkes, Jamie Robson, Michael Mellon (Joe Quigley 70) 

Subs not used: Tom Donaghy, Will Sutton 

Newport County: Jordan Wright, Anthony Glennon, Lee Jenkins, Akin Odimayo (Ciarán Brennan 31), Cameron Evans, Sammy Braybrooke, Kai Whitmore, Habeeb Ogunneye (Michael Spelman 67), Bobby Kamwa (Michael Reindorf 80), Courtney Baker-Richardson (Ben Lloyd 80), Ged Garner 

Subs not used: Nik Tzanev, James Clarke