TON Pentre lifted the Brian Lomax SD Cup tonight as they put a Newport County AFC development side to the sword at Ynys Park.

County missed out on the chance of getting their hands on the Supporters Direct silverware, with an inexperienced team being on the wrong end of a 5-0 hiding.

It was perhaps no surprise that County’s matchday squad didn’t feature a single first-team regular given the game came just 48 hours after the demolition of Weston-super-Mare and the same length of time before tomorrow’s trip to Forest Green Rovers – yesterday’s encounter should really have been advertised as Ton Pentre versus a Newport County XI.

You got the feeling that County’s big names were never going to be involved when you consider that the Weston fixture was added to the pre-season schedule after the Ton Pentre clash, given a new date when it clashed with Wales’ Euro 2016 semi-final, had been rearranged.

Fair play though to the County fans who travelled to the Rhondda on a wet and misty Thursday night to see how a collection of mainly academy players would fare against a former Welsh Premier League outfit.

In truth, the first half was a disaster for the visitors as Ton Pentre stormed into a 3-0 lead with goals from Liam Reed, Leon Jacka and former County youngster Corey Shephard.

County offered very little and the miserable weather was a reflection of how things were going for the young Exiles on the pitch.

Like the weather, County did improve after the interval as they used their bench in a bid to claw back some sort of respectability on the scoreboard.

Credit must go to Ton Pentre for the way they went about their business and converted their chances, and the home side rubbed further salt into the County wounds before the 90 minutes were up by adding two more courtesy of Gavin Morris and a second for Reed.

Exiles chief Warren Feeney, who wasn’t present at last night’s game, is likely to use more first-teamers during tomorrow’s Forest Green fixture.

County: Marcus Beauchamp, Evan Press, Liam Martin, Ben Jones, Liam Angel, Momodou Touray, Lewi Bamford, Jake Young, Dafydd Jones, Rhys Kavanagh, Kyron Tolland. Subs: Finlay Wood, Tom Savigar, Liam Warman, Dion Molyneux, Tom Hillman, Rhys Davies.