IT was an important result for us at Chippenham Town on Saturday and it was a good second-half performance that helped us get it.

The combination of result and performance rarely goes together. We have had games this year where we have had the result without the performance and vice versa.

We certainly had a response in the second-half on Saturday although the first-half performance was poor, to be honest, against the slope and the wind.

But in the second-half we restricted Chippenham to only a couple of half-chances -- although one of them led to their goal -- and the performance merited the victory, even though the winning goal from Paul Carty came in injury-time.

We made changes on Saturday that won us the game, and having Craig Woodley and Craig Dean come in has given us more options.

Woodley has had a knee operation and is fighting his way back.

He has carved himself some semblance of a career at this level and it was only cost-cutting measures that forced Nuneaton to release him. We think he is worth pursuing.

Dean, our latest signing who has initially come for a month, came on in the second half and acquitted himself quite well.

With Jon Holloway out injured, we haven't got a great deal of defensive cover but Craig coming in can allow Paul Carty to switch to right-back if necessary.

It is well documented that we are thin on the ground in terms of numbers, but having players like these come in helps you get through situations that are presented to you.

Much has been made of our winning goal and the fact that Chippenham felt we should have given the ball back to them after one of their players was injured.

I'm not sure their player tried to get the ball out of play too quickly, and even after that they had two or three situations to defend better than what they did.

I suppose if it had happened to us I would be disappointed, but it was a very mixed day in all, what with the incident involving David Foy as well.

The win has kept us on the coat-tails of the leaders in the Dr Martens Premier Division and if you look at the table, the teams at the top end are not averaging two points a game.

That is quite an interesting statistic and just emphasises how tight the league is going to be this year.

Newport County are next up for us at St George's Lane on Saturday and although Peter Nicholas' side haven't had the best of starts this season, they have had better results recently.

Games between the two sides have been pretty entertaining affairs ever since I have been at the club.

I expected them to be higher in the table than what they are, but you can't look at anybody's position in the table and read too much into it. We have a game on our hands and I don't see that being any different on Saturday.

We could be aided by other results but whatever happens elsewhere in the country, for us it is total focus on what happens at St George's Lane.

Jon Holloway's fitness is improving which is good news and he's perhaps a week or two away now. He's certainly doubtful for this weekend but I would hope he may be fit for the following week's trip to Chelmsford.