Newtown 1

Bala Town 0

GEORGE Harry came off the bench to fire Newtown to glory over Bala Town at Latham Park on Saturday.

The summer signing had barely been on the pitch for three minutes when he raced clear to latch onto a long clearance from goalkeeper Dave Jones to net with six minutes remaining.

Former Newtown midfielder Steve Leslie tested Jones inside the opening three minutes with his long range effort forcing the Newtown custodian into action.

However the Lakesiders struggled to find a route through a well organised home defence.

Henry Jones' deft touches failed to outsmart the Robins rearguard, marshalled by Kieran Mills-Evans on his 200th appearance for his hometown club.

The closest Bala came to breaking the deadlock arrived midway through the half with Louis Robles breaking into the box on the right only to drag his shot wide of the far post.

Newtown had their moments with Mills-Evans denied in a goalmouth scramble before Joe Kenton narrowly failed to connect with Sean McAllister's right wing cross.

Meanwhile former Bala favourite Ian Sheridan also lashed just over the bar from 20 yards as Newtown more than held their own.

Chances continued toe be sparse after the break with Nathan Burke firing over before Chris Venables finally broke free of his shackles with 20 minutes remaining only to be denied by a fine one handed save by Jones.

Both sides made a string of changes in a bid to break the deadlock with Harry arriving on 81 minutes.

Harry twice tested his range before racing onto Jones' goal kick to round Morris and send Latham Park into frantic celebration with six minutes remaining with the hosts surviving a tense finale to toast the points

NEWTOWN: D Jones, McAllister (Thorn 81), Mills-Evans, Denny, Mitchell, Rushton (Mwandwe 58), Sheridan (Harry 81), Kenton, Williams, Kelly, Barnes. Subs: Steventon, Morrus, Phillips, Flint.

Att - 272