MATCH-WINNER Fraser Franks believes the travelling fans saw the real Newport County AFC at Tranmere Rovers on Saturday.

Franks scored the only goal of the game in the fifth minute at Prenton Park as County recorded a third successive away win in the Football League for the first time since 1983.

The impressive performance and excellent result went some way to making up for last week’s 6-0 home defeat to Yeovil Town.

And with three home games on the bounce, starting with tonight’s Checkatrade Trophy tie against Chelsea under-21s, the Exiles want to get back to winning ways at Rodney Parade as quickly as possible.

“It just shows the character we’ve got in this team,” said Franks after Saturday’s win.

“I said last week that we’d bounce back and try to repay the fans and hopefully we’ve done that for the ones that made the long journey.

“We had to get back to ourselves. We’re a solid team and we pride ourselves on clean sheets and being resilient.

“It’s massive for us,” he added. “We wanted to prove to people that last week was a fluke and it won’t happen again and that we’re a good team.

“It’s a real good show of character. Most people would have seen us lose 6-0 and expect us to go under but we’ve bounced back and we’re back where we want to be.”

Franks produced a superb finish to score his second goal of the season but he was happier to keep Tranmere out at the other end.

“The clean sheet is better than the goal for me,” said the 27-year-old.

“I would have taken that over the goal so to get both means it’s a good weekend.

“Port Vale, Oldham and Tranmere are tough places to go and win. There’s not many teams that will go to Tranmere and win so we’ve got to be proud of that.

“We’ve got no egos here,” he added. “We’ve got nobody who thinks that they’re better than they are. We know we need to work hard to be successful in this league and we rolled our sleeves up and got on with it.”

Franks was delighted that goalkeeper Joe Day was able to celebrate his 200th appearance for the club in style.

“I’m glad it wasn’t last week for Joe,” he joked. “He was immense for us. He didn’t let last week affect him and he’s proved that he’s one of the best goalkeepers in this league.”

Michael Flynn’s men now want to put on a string of performances at home to make up for the Yeovil humiliation.

After tonight's Trophy tie against the Chelsea youngsters they welcome Cambridge United and Macclesfield to Rodney Parade for League Two matches on Saturday and next Tuesday respectively.

“We want to get back to winning at home as well,” said Franks. “That 6-0 is not going to go away overnight.

“We’ve got three home matches in a row now so we need to pick up as many points as we can.

“We’re in a very good position in the league, we’ve got a lot of points already and we’ll just try to keep picking up as many as we can.”

County are only opening the Bisley Stand tonight so all supporters will be housed there.

Ticket prices are £5 for adults, £3 for concessions, and £1 for juniors.