NEWPORT County boss Peter Beadle was delighted last night after his side thrashed Basingstoke 3-0, but promised fans: "We can play better."

It was a super start to the home campaign, Craig Hughes with a brace and Julian Alsop with a goal on his home debut securing the three points.

However, County did take their foot off the accelerator after scoring a third and that did not go unnoticed by Beadle.

He explained: "I thought we were impressive. I was really pleased with the first half, I was delighted with the application and the way we went about it, we looked a good side in the first half.

"We caused them a lot of problems and looked solid defensively and I was very pleased with that.

"But in the second half they had a bit of possession and we didn't cope with that very well, which is something we can work on.

"We can play better but at the end of the day, 3-0 at Spytty in the first home game of the season, you can't grumble at that.

"Our strikers were excellent and we had Matt Green and Matt Prosser sitting on the bench, so that looks very impressive.

"Both Craig and Julian have got off the mark and already have two goals each and are setting themselves standards, no-one works harder and tries harder than Craig.

"Generally we need to maintain and improve these standards, at Fisher they settled for being 1-0 up and I don't want that - keep going, don't settle for 2-0 or anything else, always want more."

Beadle was full of praise for County's work-rate, picking out Sam O'Sullivan for a display full of purpose.

"Sam's energy rubs off on people, he's still got a long way to go but if he keeps improving, he'll be a really good player, he put himself in the team for Saturday with that display," he said.

"Saturday will be a different game, Havant are a different sort of team and a good team, but if we perform like we did in the first half then it is going to be a good game.

"This is a fantastic club to play for and the lads know it, if our players are hungry they will succeed."

Beadle was delighted with the large crowd (928) and is hoping they will maintain in numbers and come back for more, starting on Saturday.

He said: "The crowd were fantastic and it is up to us to keep them coming.

"Lets hope on Saturday we will have over 1,000, we need to keep the supporters coming back and that is our intention."