NEWPORT County AFC trained at Sheffield United’s base as they made the long trek north to take on Hartlepool United but they’ve been on the road all week.

County have been unable to use their usual training base at Spytty Park as it was pre-booked by the Football Association of Wales for the national under-17s side.

That meant the Exiles relocated to Chippenham for the week and Warren Feeney believes the change of scenery will have benefited his players.

“We’ve been up at the Wilshire FA where I think they used to train under Justin [Edinburgh],” said Feeney.

“The Welsh FA had our training ground booked from last year for the under-17s.

“A few of the boys were happy because they travel in from there anyway so it made it a bit easier for them.

“And I think it can be a good thing. The facilities over at Spytty are absolutely fantastic but you don’t want to get stale.

“It gets them together again and it’s something different for the boys.

“And we’re going to be training on the way up there – I don’t like sitting on motorways so we’re going to get up as far as we can and we’ll use Sheffield United’s training ground so thank you to them.”

Feeney is hopeful that defender Jamie Turley will be fit to face Hartlepool after being forced off with a knee problem last Saturday.

“This is the first week that we’ve had no midweek game so we’ve been able to work them that wee bit harder – it’s been intense,” said the Exiles boss.

“There are a couple who came off last Saturday that we’ve got to hopefully get right but apart from that we’re looking good and raring to go.

“Jamie Turley is a worry. He’s trained but you’ve got to be 100 per cent [to play].

“Jordan [Green] trained and he’s fine but there’s a couple of niggles and hopefully they’ll be OK.

“We got a reserve game in during the week for the ones who haven’t played – just to keep their fitness up.

“There are good players there chomping at the bit and the attitude is totally different to last season.

“You could see a lot of the games when we went behind last year we couldn’t get back into but I think that’s two or three games where we’ve been behind in this year that we’ve got back into.

“There’s a lot more determination and desire now. And we’re scoring goals.

“There’s a lot more passion there and you can clearly see the boys don’t want to get beat – that’s a good thing to have.”