WITH Justin Edinburgh in charge, Aaron O’Connor, Jefferson Louis and Ryan Charles up front and Max Porter running midfield, there is a Rushden & Diamonds heartbeat running right through Newport County’s pulsating start to the Blue Square Bet Premier season.
Rodney Parade boss Edinburgh keeps telling his squad he believes they can emulate what his Nene Park team did in reaching the play-offs in 2009-10 and, after five wins from their opening five matches, they are starting to believe him.
At least that is the view of O’Connor, the division’s player of the month with six goals in those five games, and a man whose voice goes almost inaudibly low when I raise the subject of one character missing from ‘Rushden Reunited’, late goalkeeper Dale Roberts.
As well as all the brilliant, bicep-bulging pictures of O’Connor celebrating in recent weeks, there is another image that sticks long in the mind, that of the then-Diamonds captain helping to carry the giant keeper’s coffin at his funeral in December 2010, following his tragic suicide.
Kiss
?Dale is someone I think about every single day, says the 29-year-old. ?I try to use it in a good way and just think about what he would be doing now, how he is looking down on us and that he cares.
?I always try to remain positive in life. I’ve got a vest with a picture of him on it and I wear it under my shirt if it’s not too hot. If I don’t wear it, I always give it a little kiss before kick-off so he’s always there with me on the pitch.”
After their struggles of last season when Edinburgh was called in following the sacking of Anthony Hudson, Newport have a new-look about them this term.
It was the capture from Luton of O’Connor, who first played for the ex-Spurs defender at Grays in 2006-07, that was crucial in helping to convey exactly what the manager wants from his squad, however.
“It’s a squad that represents the manager now,” said O’?Connor. ?Everyone knows that Justin wants them there, when last season that may not always have been the case.
“He’s put a squad together in a similar way to how he did it at Rushden, the year we got to the play-offs. He refers to that and says that he believes that we’ve got as good a squad as he had then. He doesn’t say anything he doesn’t mean, but when he was saying ‘I think we can do well’, I think a lot of the boys weren’t too sure.
?I never doubted it, but for the lads who have never worked with him before, five wins in five games have got them believing 100 per cent what he says.”
Having a manager hold him up as a shining light is all a bit different to when the Nottingham-born forward first went full-time with Scunthorpe United in December 2002, after impressing at Ilkeston Town.
He was back at the New Manor Ground at the end of his three-month contract, however, with then Iron boss Brian Laws criticising his attitude.
Attitude
?It was different then,” says O’Connor. ?It wasn’t my attitude in terms of how I was towards football, but I was sloppy because I’d gone from Ilkeston to a full-time club, and it was little things like being two minutes late, or forgetting to turn your phone off when you’re in a dressing room.
?My phone went off once and Brian went mad. He was going to throw it against the wall, he went red in the face, screaming and shouting, and in my head I was thinking ‘Wow, this is a big deal’.
?If it had happened at Ilkeston you’d have got it out, turned it off and no-one would have batted an eyelid. The senior players who’d been around a pro club for longer knew to put it on silent as soon as they got in the car park.
?It was about learning to be a professional, and I’m sure if you asked Brian about my attitude on the pitch, he’d say that I worked as hard as I do now; just as I have from when I first started playing at 12 years old.”
After another year at Ilkeston, O’Connor made the decision to break away from his friends in 2004 and ?go somewhere I didn’t know anyone, so I could just concentrate on my football.”
A meeting with Gary Norton led to ?the best decision [he] ever made” in signing for Gresley Rovers, where 80 goals in 127 games caught Edinburgh’s attention at Grays.
Prolific
O’Connor’s record in the Conference has not been quite so prolific, but with 59 in 172 starts for Grays, Mansfield, Rushden and Luton, he still averaged better than a goal every three games prior to moving to south Wales.
With his finishing having “improved immensely over the years”?, according to Edinburgh, he seems set for the kind of prolific campaign many anticipated when Gary Brabin signed him for the Hatters following Rushden’s collapse last summer.
“I set myself a target of 15-20 goals, and I’m a quarter of the way there already,” he said.
“If I can keep playing, stay fit, and the team keep creating chances for me, then hopefully I can do my bit and we can have a good season.
?We wanted to go about our business quietly, but the start we’ve made has got people talking about us so teams are now going to try that little bit harder against us now.
“But it doesn’t make any difference to us. We’ve just got to keep doing what we are doing and see where we end up.”
