EXETER City's Head of Coaching, Brad-Lee Miller, came away from Saturday’s Under-18s clash between his side and Newport County extremely delighted as his youngsters produced a dominant second-half performance to triumph 4-1, writes Derek Baker.

'I’m pleased with the result and performance in the end,' said Miller, before adding, 'Obviously, there were moments which could have been cleaner, particularly with some of the players coming back. In the final third, we missed chances and it was a bit chaotic, particularly in the first half, but we showed a bit of quality in the end. Overall I am pleased with the group, and some of the individual performances.'

The Grecians began proceedings in a lively manner, and just a few minutes in, they looked in the mood after Tom Dean and Alfie Clark combined effectively.

However, the Welshmen matched their opponents in the opening stages, and they applied pressure early on, but Scott Simmons’ strong defending prevented any danger.

Both teams continued to trade openings throughout the first half, however, City’s Mitch Beardmore almost broke the deadlock with a magnificent piece of skill but his rabona shot was parried away. Up the other end, Exeter's Andrew Sowden made a tremendous save on 32 minutes.

After going close on numerous occasions, the Devon outfit eventually broke the deadlock five minutes before the interval when Clark crossed for Dean, who guided the ball past the goalkeeper with a half-volley for 1-0.

The Devon club were pegged back though just before half-time when the Exiles capitalised on some sloppy possession play, which in turn saw their centre-forward dink the ball over Sowden.

Despite the tricky conditions, the Grecians came out for the second period with real intent, and they made it 2-1 on the hour mark when Beardmore whipped in a devilish free-kick. One Newport player diverted the ball into his own net to hand the advantage back to the hosts.

With 25 minutes remaining, Miller, introduced senior scholars, George Spencer, Gabriel Billington and Joe O’Connor from the substitutes' bench, and, with that, his team began to dictate proceedings.

With a step up in quality, Miller's men created numerous chances to kill the game off. Firstly, Spencer’s long-range effort went narrowly over, before Pedro Borges saw a volley denied by a point-blank save.

But, as the clock ticked into the red, Exeter deservedly doubled their advantage after Billington linked up with Spencer. The latter made room for a shot and poked the ball into the bottom corner to double the Grecian advantage.

In the fourth minute of injury time, the win was sealed and the points were secured when Billington picked up possession in a dangerous position once again. The replacement teed up Borges, who whipped the ball past the goalkeeper to make it 4-1, meaning City's youngsters secured their first win in the league since mid-November and have climbed to fourth in the Youth Alliance South West divisional standings.