THE Rodney Parade faithful welcomed back Andrew Hughes after 11 months on the sidelines on Tuesday night and fellow defenders Scott Barrow and Janoi Donacien should be fit to return before too long.

Hughes came off the bench with a little over half an hour remaining of the FA Cup victory over Brackley Town to make his first competitive appearance in a Newport County AFC shirt since December last year.

The 23-year-old academy graduate has battled back from a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament and was cheered onto the pitch on Tuesday.

Manager John Sheridan is delighted to have Hughes back and hopes the defender can recapture the form that caught the eye of bigger clubs at the start of last season.

“It’s always good when you’ve been out for a long time with injury and I thought it was a good opportunity to get him on the pitch and give him a bit of first team football,” said the Exiles boss.

“It’s good for him, he’s worked very hard.

“It’s a very lonely place when you’re injured and you’re trying to get back and everyone’s going out playing and training and you’re in the gym on your own.

“Obviously he’s got to get back to the pace of the game but it’s really pleasing to have him back around the team.

“Hopefully he’ll get back to what he was doing last season when he was playing really well in a good Newport side.”

Sheridan also revealed the reason behind striker Zak Ansah’s absence from the squad for the FA Cup first round replay win over Brackley and said Donacien and Barrow should be back soon.

Asked about Ansah, he said: “If I’d played him he would have missed the Notts County game in the league [on December 12] – that’s just the politics of his loan.

“I felt we could cope without him and it was more important to have him involved in the Notts County game.”

On Donacien he added: “It’s an ankle injury but he’s recovering a lot better than we thought and hopefully he won’t be out for as long as we first thought.

“It is early days but the signs are good and he’s probably a couple of weeks away [from playing again].

“He’s Aston Villa’s player but he has been with us the last couple of days and he’s in the physio’s hands so we’ll just have to see what is best for him.”

And on Barrow, Sheridan said: “He’s got a toe injury – a toe nail injury – and he declared himself not fit to play the game so we’ll have to see what comes of that one.”