Lowry previews return to league action against Newport

Argyle Under-18s will look to repeat last weekend’s heroics against Newport County on Saturday when the Greens face the Exiles once again, this time in the Youth Alliance League, at Millennium Fields.

The Pilgrims confidently strolled into the last eight of the Youth Alliance Cup with a straightforward 7-1 win over the Welsh side in their previous fixture a week ago, through four goals from Tegan Finn, two from Seb Campbell and one from Fletcher Poole. 

In the reverse fixture in league action, Argyle came away as 5-1 victors, handing three points to head coach Jamie Lowry’s side.

Lowry believes that a similar result to previous fixtures can be achieved, but compliancy and over-confidence must not become something at the forefront of conversations ahead of the match.

“We want to build off the win last weekend,” Lowry told Argyle TV. “A similar performance and similar result would be very nice. Newport will come looking for revenge and will want to improve on last week, so we've got to make sure our levels don't drop. Keeping the level of performance is the most important thing and then the result will come with that.

“We always speak about the preparation before the match that being key and last week was good. We’ll do the same again this week and hope it is proven in the performance on Saturday.

“The lads’ mindset is a big thing. We will continue to reiterate that to them, keep giving them information, and show them what we want from them. 

“We might even use the Argyle v Liverpool game as an example. We don’t want to come into the game thinking that we’re better than them and that it’s a comfortable victory.

“We keep telling them we don't want to drop our levels and keep going. After the Everton game, it's something we did well. We didn't drop our levels and kicked on from that, so hopefully we’ll see the same again on Saturday with a strong squad available.”

After an unbeaten run of 11 league games earlier in the season, Lowry hopes a confident result against Newport can kickstart a similar run of form to end the season. 

He said: “It's something we spoke about and something that we're keen to do. We'd like to try to hit another run of results in the league, that will leave us in a good position to be up and around the top at the end of the season. 

“It's something we need to keep building on. We can build off the Everton game, and off the back of the Newport game. We must keep our levels high and be consistent with our performance levels.”