The NEW SAINTS boss Scott Ruscoe believes his side gave the perfect response to be being pegged back in their win over Barry Town United on Sunday as the Welsh Premier League got underway at Park Hall.

Doubles from Christian Seargeant and Greg Draper plus a goal from Blaine Hudson saw off the south Wales side, who struck a first-half leveller to shock the Saints.

But Ruscoe was delighted that TNS restored their lead almost immediately and was happy to have rotated his squad following midweek European action.

"It was a good performance and in the first half we could have had four or five," he said. "There was a bit of disappointment when we went ahead and they equalised soon after.

"But we were straight back ahead which was good because if we went into half one-all and they had done anything to get a goal, then I’d have been disappointed.

"I thought our reaction to losing a goal was brilliant and once we went 3-1 ahead, it was job done because there was no way they were coming back into the game.

"Scoring five goals in a week where we need to score them is a boost but if you look at the players we chose to not even use, it’s better.

"We had Danny Redmond out while Ryan Brobbel and Jon Routledge didn’t play. To rely on these young players such as Ben Clark who came on, Joash Nembhard came on; it shows the squad we’ve got now.

"Sarge scored two great goals and he hasn’t played for months while Adrian Cieslewicz did really well too – these players are hungry.

"It was good to put a marker down; I said to the players the marker they put down is a win because it’s better to win by five rather than losing 50-2 like we did last year.

"We’ve come such a long way since then and how we’ve improved. But I said to make sure we got the win with playing European game, league game and then European game again."

Saints face a tough week, starting with tomorrow's Europa League second leg clash with FC Midtjylland before playing Connah’s Quay.

Ruscoe added: "We’ve had to switch things about on Sunday and we’ll have to do the same next week as well because of Europe. We were able to rest a few, with no disrespect to Barry but we could’ve put out a few different teams that still would’ve won.

"I didn’t want to change too many were people may have thought it was too easy but enough for people to get minutes ahead of Europe."