NEWPORT County boss Justin Edinburgh wants to use Burton’s superb midweek cup success over Queens Park Rangers as a motivator for his team this week at Portsmouth.

The Exiles travel to Fratton Park with the hosts in rude health, their midweek reverse to Premier League Stoke City their only defeat in their past 13 fixtures, stretching over two seasons.

That’s a similar story to the fast start made at the Pirelli Stadium with Burton winning every game they’ve played this season, including against Premier League and Championship opposition, other than when they travelled to Newport.

Last weekend the honours were shared 1-1 at Rodney Parade before Gary Rowett’s side dumped Harry Redknapp’s QPR out of the Capital One Cup on Wednesday.

The Exiles are as big a price as 4/1 with some bookies to win at Fratton Park, as they did last season in the league, but Edinburgh wants his players to take enormous heart from seeing Burton dump QPR.

“We should take confidence from that point last weekend, especially after they turned over QPR and talking to the Burton staff, they expected a tough game from us, they expected nothing less,” he said.

“They feel and I feel we are in a false position, but we can’t get caught up in that, we need to get the results because they don’t lie, but though I feel we’ve started slowly, I do think performances have got better and results will come.

“We need to stop surrendering leads, but that comes with confidence and I thought after conceding to Burton we pressed for the winner and we take positives from that.

“We did well against a good side in this division and we need to do that same again at Portsmouth. Though when we look at the start of our campaign, so far all the teams are near the top, it’s been tougher than maybe we realised.”

Edinburgh is still hoping he can do further business between now and the end of the transfer window (the deadline is 11pm on September 1) but is also keen to point out he could use the loan market from September 8 onwards, hinting at a link-up with Premier League Swansea City.

“We want to be active, there is no doubt about that, we always try to improve, Joe has come along and improved us and we’ll still try and do business, even if it is when the loan market re-opens,” he said.

“And we are looking at doing something with Swansea this season, potentially,” he said.

“I am building up a relationship with Garry Monk because we are working towards our UEFA Pro Licenses together at Dragon Park.

“He wanted the season to get up and running to see where his squad is at and we left it that four or so games down the line we’ll talk again about players who could potentially develop us and who we help their development squad by getting Football League experience.

“That’s something we’ll look to progress and stay on top of and likewise, we’d like to do the same thing with Cardiff City.”