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A trip to Newport is the last thing Torquay need at the moment

Non-league RSS / / 10 January 2008 /

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"Professor" of Non-League football Gary Boswell talks us through the best bet on offer as Torquay travel to Newport in the FA Trophy

If you've been following this blog all season, you'll know that Torquay are always on my potential lay list as a team likely to be short priced and with question marks in both the goalkeeper and manager boxes.

This weekend they travel to Spytty Park to take on Newport County in the FA Trophy and the Boz antennae has been quivering all week. Prices are heavily weighted in Torquay's favour whilst Blue Square South fifth placed Newport County are on the Boz A list of team's to be comfortable backing courtesy of excellent manager Peter Beadle and the presence of goalkeeper Glynn Thompson (second choice at Hereford last season) and goalkeeping coach Tony Pennock who is well known to all non-league lovers as the keeper that got Yeovil into the football league. He is also currently manager of the Welsh non-league International team.

Spytty Park is a tough place to travel at the best of times. County have lost just once there in the league this season and won fifteen out of twenty one there last season when the late lunge into the play-offs was thwarted only by the chronic fixture backlog that they built up. 'The pitch is a bitch' is a translation from Welsh and relates to the infamous mudbaths that characterise the venue. There's also a shed that generates a temperature and the infamous BarAmber where you are best not going if you're a card carrying Englishman!

Torquay are not going to fancy it. Coming at a time when they desperately need to focus on their league campaign after a Christmas and New Year that has seen them lose twice and squeak home by narrow margins in the other two. The similarities of Oxford's derailment last season are there for all to see and Paul Buckle - who has already sent a Micky Mouse line-up out to lose to St Albans in the Setanta Shield - can be expected to seriously swerve this as a priority game.

A full strength Torquay might struggle anyway. County's ace poacher Craig Hughes re-found his scoring boots in the 5-0 thumping of Weston on New Year's day and Julian Alsop and ex-Woking front man Charlie Griffin are also in form so that Torquay, who may give a debut to new signing Michael Poke in goal, are due to spend much of the afternoon on the back foot.

I really fancy the chances of a Newport win and anything over [4.5] is going to tempt me to back but a lay on Torquay at anything below [2.0] is gonna get Boz busting open the piggy bank because it looks to me like one of those occasions when the odds compilers are going on league positions rather than individual match assessment.

A fit and firing Torquay who could be guaranteed to be playing for their skins (which it is always possible they might be if it's decided they need a pick-me-up after Monday) might weigh in at around 2.7 on the Boz match odds because their technical ability is greater but even at that price, they still have question marks in the Goalkeeper and Manager boxes so at [2.0] BOZ is laying BIG STYLE!!

Two other bets this weekend in the Blue Square North and South. AFC Telford manager Rob Smith is widely known as 'The Headcase' because of his touchline histrionics but I like the way he 'conducts his orchestra' during the 90 minutes and the Bucks are on their way back up the leagues largely because of him. They might not breeze past a Solihull Moors team for whom this season has been a struggle - especially at home -because the Moors come in on the back of a decent away win themselves last week at Tamworth. AFC Telford are value though and rate the Boz nap in the North this weekend.

That honour belongs to Hampton & Richmond in the South. Their manager Alan Devonshire has far greater experience than his Thurrock counterpart Hakan Heyrettin and the subsequent league positions are not lying. Thurrock could be in for a thumping.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

4pt LAY on Torquay against Newport County at anything under [2.0]
2pt BACK AFC Telford to beat Solihull Moors at [2.0]
2pt BACK Hampton & Richmond to beat Thurrock at [1.6]

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