BALA have given themselves some breathing space after a fine 5-1 win at Newtown to open up a five-point gap on fourth placed Cardiff Met.

Newtown 1 Bala Town 1, JD Cymru Premier Championship

The Lakesiders were at it from the first whistle with their attacking intent highlighted by George Newell’s breathtaking six-minute hat-trick.

Newtown were guilty of some defensive lapses that helped Bala but the visitors were clinical on the day with manager Colin Caton happy to see his team amongst the goals.

He said: “We’ve played really well going forward today. We’ve lacked goals over the season but the lads have been playing really well over the past few weeks or the last couple of months really.

“I thought we were outstanding as a unit, outstanding as a shape and as an attacking force we’ve done really well today.”

The home side offered the first threat on goal, Shane Sutton latching on to a curling free kick into the box but his tame effort was straight at Bala keeper Kelland Absalom.

At the other end, Luke Wall ran on to a flick on from Newell to make space for a shot, but he dragged his effort wide.

The same player went close again moments later, beating his man to fire a shot on goal which was blocked by the recovering defender.

The Lakesiders made the breakthrough on 13 minutes, Osebi Abadaki playing a one-two with Paulo Mendes to unleash a pin-point strike into the bottom right hand corner.

But the lead was short-lived as Louis Robles was given too much space and curled a 20-yarder beyond Absalom to equalise.

Then it was time for the George Newell show with two goals in as many minutes, the first a close range header from a corner quickly followed by a cool finish past Andrew Wycherley after outpacing the covering defender.

Bala had a goal ruled out for offside when Newell’s deflected effort found the back of the net but he claimed the match ball moments later when another close range efforts deflected past Wycherley.

Bala were well in the ascendancy and kept pushing for further reward after the break and they made it 5-1 just before the hour mark when Absalom’s long punt downfield was headed on by Aeron Edwards to Abadaki who kept his composure to fire past Wycherley for his second of the afternoon.

That was job done for Bala as they eased off the gas to run out comfortable winners with eyes on Friday evening’s clash against second placed Connah’s Quay Nomads at Maes Tegid.

Newtown boss Scott Ruscoe said: “As a collective I didn’t think we defended well enough. After conceding a sloppy goal we got back in the game.

“I though that we were ok first 10 to 15 minutes, we were quite bright.

“It was a big game today because we would only have been a couple of points behind them if we had won the game.

“So that’s disappointing as was some of the decisions we’ve made defensively, but collectively not just the defenders, it goes right through the team.

“I’ve spoken to them there about it and we need to do better.”