The New Saints boss Scott Ruscoe has admitted his pride at reaching his first Welsh Cup final as a manager after his side beat Barry Town United.

Second-half goals from Greg Draper and Jamie Mullan were enough to see Saints past Barry in a keenly-contested clash at Newton’s Latham Park.

Ruscoe was happy with his side’s showing but admitted reaching the final was the only thing on his mind.

“I’m very proud to reach my first Welsh Cup as a manager,” he said.

“I said to the lads to not taking reaching finals for granted because you’ll miss them when you stop playing.

The next best thing is to be there as a coach or manager, and I won it as a player too, so it would be good to win it, especially as part of a double.

“Getting into the final was the be-all-end-all and it was our objective from the start.

“I’m happy with 2-0 even though we could have put it to bed earlier but it’s a clean sheet.

“When they hit the post, I thought it might not be, especially when we had headers and shots across the box in the first half.

“But it was our night tonight and it’s great when you turn the screw and keep going, you get your rewards.

“They were up for it – I told the boys they’ve dropped off in the league and they’re a bit dejected by that but they can still get into a final.

“We had to make sure we were the ones in that final because there’s nothing worse than getting beat here and going into Bala on Wednesday flat.”

Ruscoe was fulsome in his praise of Draper, who opened the scoring despite protestations from Aeron Edwards that he got the final touch.

And he admits that while on-loan Cardiff man Jack Bodenham was unlucky to miss out, his decision to start Tm Holland Chris Marriott was justified.

“You want the ball dropping to Greg from 12 yards out and I thought he played really well, especially his hold-up play,” he said.

“We went with him tonight and he fully deserved it. Chris is one of the best footballers we’ve got and it doesn’t matter where he plays, he’s so good.

“He steps in and has a good switch of play. Not saying Jack doesn’t but I wanted Tom Holland in too so I made that sacrifice.

“Tom’s break-up play was brilliant and we didn’t need Jon Routledge to do that. He didn’t allow Barry to play and it was the right decision.”