Sean's Delight At Brighton Brace

By Tom Easterby - Newcastle United Club Reporter

Sean Longstaff is hoping his matchwinning double in the 2-1 win at Brighton & Hove Albion on Monday night can prove to be the catalyst for him to become a regular on the scoresheet this season.

The 18-year-old opened the scoring at the Checkatrade.com Stadium after just six minutes, sliding in to find the target as Peter Beardsley's side raced out of the traps.

Joe Ward's leveller with 17 minutes left of what was a tough second half for the Magpies looked to have swung the Premier League 2 Division Two clash in the Seagulls' favour, but Longstaff popped up at the other end barely a minute later to slam home the winner.

Those two strikes were his first goals of the campaign and, now that he's off the mark, Longstaff is hoping he'll be able to add plenty more over the next few weeks.

"It's been a long time coming, to be fair!" he told nufc.co.uk. "It's always nice to score, so hopefully I can carry that on now and get a few more.

"I've been trying to get off the mark, and I've probably been trying a bit too hard in the last couple of games. In pre-season I got a few, but it's about what you do in the league when the season starts, so hopefully this is the start and I can score a few more now.

"I was lucky in a way (with the winner) because it just fell to me, and I didn't really have a lot of time to think about where I was going to put the ball. I was able to chip it over the goalkeeper because he was quite close, and luckily it went it.

"We were struggling a bit at that point in the second half, and that goal was probably against the run of play a little bit, but it was probably one of the few times in the second half when we moved it quickly and played how we wanted to play.

"It's always nice when you can score a goal at the end of it."

The victory over the Seagulls was United's first since their 3-0 win at Norwich City on the first day of the campaign.

Since then, Beardsley's youngsters have been beaten by West Ham and Aston Villa, before recovering to pick up a point at home to Stoke City last week.

And Longstaff says their latest result has provided his team with a welcome boost after a few challenging weeks, even if they had to dig in at times against Brighton to make sure of the points.

"Everyone's really pleased. It's a bit like last year - we haven't enjoyed losing. We played well in the second half against Stoke, I thought we were really good, and I thought for the first half tonight we were really good," he said. "We moved the ball really quickly and they couldn't really deal with us.

"In the second half, we weren't as good, but overall I think the lads are just happy to get three points as it's good to win when we can.

"The teams that we had out against West Ham and Villa were pretty experienced, and we didn't really perform, so although we've had a bit of a younger group in the last two games we've worked a little bit harder and we've done well. Hopefully we can carry it on on Thursday against Sheffield United (in the Central League Cup)."