A NEWPORT County AFC team made up of academy prospects and mystery trialists was held to a 1-1 draw at Merthyr Town in a match that offered few clues as to how the Exiles will fare in League Two this season.

The County XI opened the scoring after a quarter of an hour after good work from Lewis Collins.

The younger brother of former Exiles forward Aaron crossed for the impressive ‘Trialist 2’ to fire past the Merthyr goalkeeper.

The player’s identity is a closely guarded secret with information supplied by the club on a need to know basis. Neither the media nor, more importantly, the fans needed to know.

The trialist, one of four to start the match for County, almost doubled his tally with a header from close range and then saw another fierce drive saved acrobatically.

But the hosts soon began to impose themselves on a youthful Exiles team with the influential Kyle Copp twice going close to levelling from free-kicks.

His first set-piece was saved low to his right by the trialist goalkeeper.

And his second was even closer as he curled the dead ball onto the outside of the post from 25 yards.

There was another flurry of activity just before the break as Merthyr striker Stuart Fleetwood burst into the left-hand side of the area and saw his shot deflected into the side netting by the Exiles keeper.

Former County winger Kerry Morgan then hit the bar with a drive from the edge of the box on the stroke of half-time.

And Merthyr sub Corey Jenkins headed over from close range just after the restart.

County academy talent Joe Hunt forced a fine save with a dipping effort midway through the second half.

Then, in a passage of play that summed up the farcical nature of the match at times, a Merthyr trialist was denied by a fine save from County’s trialist keeper before another Exiles trialist headed in past a Martyrs trialist but was denied his goal by an offside flag.

With Momodou Touray well shackled for the most part, the match looked to be drifting to a 1-0 win for the visitors.

But Merthyr were awarded a penalty and Fleetwood hammered home from the spot to level nine minutes from time. Not that the result mattered all that much.

Explaining the decision to rest the first team players, most of whom had got 45 minutes at Chippenham Town on Tuesday night, coach Wayne Hatswell cited concerns over the artificial surface at the LoadLok Community Stadium.

“It’s a 3G or 4G surface and we can’t afford to lose anyone really,” said Hatswell, who had a watching brief as academy manager Byron Anthony took charge.

“That’s no disrespect to Merthyr. The game’s been pencilled in and we will fulfil that.

“But it’s a chance for us to look at a couple of trialists who really need 90 minutes.

“We couldn’t give them that at Swindon or Chippenham because we want to give the lads that have been here from the start 45 minutes each – that’s our agenda at the moment.

“We’ll start cranking it up from Saturday.”

The Exiles go to Evesham to take on Tim Harris’ Gloucester City on Saturday when manager Michael Flynn will be at the helm once again.

Flynn has missed the last two friendlies as he studies for his UEFA Pro Licence in Portugal.

County: Trialist 1, J. Williams, Savigar, Foulston (Hillman, 52), Hunt, Trialist 2, Press, Trialist 3 (Scrivens, 60), Collins, Touray, Trialist 4

Subs not used: Warman, Taylor, Nganjoa, Taylor