BANTAMS keeper Sam Walker has hailed his side’s powers of recovery and admits that ability to fight back and win is an important tick in the box for any side with designs on a successful season.

City fell 1-0 behind at home to Colchester in August 2023, before hitting back to win 2-1, but then went 14 months without repeating that trick at Valley Parade.

But all of a sudden, Graham Alexander’s men have done it in consecutive home games, allowing them to see off potential League Two promotion rivals Gillingham then move into the FA Cup second round at the expense of Aldershot.

And just over two weeks before that win over Gillingham, City held their nerve to plunder a potentially vital last-gasp equaliser at Morecambe.

In a perfect world, comebacks would not be necessary, but Walker reflected: “It’s such a critical skill to have in a successful team.

“The stat that was doing the rounds at the Newport home game last month was how good we are at winning once we’ve gone ahead.

“But you’re going to have setbacks in games, this league and football in general isn’t always plain sailing.

“The very best teams can go a goal down and it’s crucial not to panic when that happens.

“We know we’ve got the quality within our team to hurt the opposition and get goals to come back into games.”

After City’s seemingly annual humiliation at Harrogate, they went five games unbeaten until losing their last league game against Doncaster, which has left them seventh in the table.

City were hopeless at Harrogate yet again in September, but then picked up 11 points from their next five league games.City were hopeless at Harrogate yet again in September, but then picked up 11 points from their next five league games. (Image: Thomas Gadd.)

Putting a few runs together like that, hopefully starting at Fleetwood on Saturday, could be vital to City’s chances of promotion, in what looks set to be an extremely tight league this season.

Currently, with nearly a third of the season gone, only six points separate Walsall in second and Salford in 12th, so anyone making a break from the pack could find themselves in a healthy position.

Walker said: “The run we put together prior to the Doncaster defeat moved us from a really difficult spot.

“The Harrogate game again was a bit of a marker for us, and it’d be nice if wasn’t a case of having to suffer that every year to go on a run.

“But we propelled ourselves up the league after that and went along quite nicely.

“For me, this league’s a marathon, not a sprint, and there will be difficult times, moments where we’re not playing quite as well.

“There are so many games and so many points left to play for, so it’s about being consistent, which comes from what we do every day in training.

“The manager is consistent in his messaging, we’re consistently training at high levels and we’re consistently doing the right things on and off the pitch.

“That hopefully then leads to consistency of performance, whereby if you know you’ve got that, while you might not always get the rewards you deserve, it should lead to consistent results.

“We know we’re a very capable side and I’ve got high belief in what we can achieve when we’re consistent with what we do.

“That’s what we’ve got to strive for really.”