Darren Ferguson hails his number nine who is the 'complete package' as Peterborough United complete FA Cup turnaround against Newport County

Jones came off the bench to score two late goals as Posh came back from an early 2-0 deficit to win 4-2 at League Two side Rodney Parade. Abraham Odoah started the comeback with his first goal for the club before Joel Randall equalised leaving Jones to steal the show late on.

Posh will learn their second round opponents on Sunday when the draw takes place live on BBC Two from 7:45pm.

After the match, Ferguson hailed Jones and praised his growth as a striker this season.

Ferguson said: “Ricky’s first finish is very, very good. He’s in form at the moment, but I had to give him a rest. You can see the improvement in Ricky. He’s got the whole package of a number nine now.

"If he gets it in the box, as a defender, you either bring him down or he’s clean in and his second goal was also a really good finish. It’s low and the keeper hasn’t got a chance. Ricky is looking like a proper number nine now.

“Overall, we made things as difficult as we could, but I wasn’t panicking. I’m fortunate, as a manager, I have so much talent at the top end of the pitch. We do the hardest thing in football - to score goals - quite comfortably and, as I’ve said before, at the moment, we’re going to have to outscore teams.

“I told them at half time, I’m not bothered if they score again, just outscore them. Tamworth beating Huddersfield was a good warning for all teams playing a side lower in the pyramid today. The starting point of the team talk was ‘you’ve seen what happened last night’ and it was a case of saying get through the first 15 minutes as they’ll be at it and they will get the crowd on side, but we just don’t do the basics.

“We were dribbling on the edge of the box and gave away a free-kick for the first goal and there’s a slip for the second. We were 2-0 down and it could have been three.

“At that point, we had to just not concede another. As the game settled down, I knew our quality would get us back into it and I’m really pleased for Abraham Odoh as he’s a great lad and he worked his socks off. He’s been quite unfortunate to not have had more minutes because he started the season well.

“I said to them at half time, if we defend the set pieces, move the ball quick and trust the forward line, we will be okay. At 2-2, I’m thinking do I stick or twist and I was okay going to extra time because of our fitness. I just wanted us to concentrate, but fortunately, Ricky went on and won us the game.

“I have to give credit to my players. They have come back from 2-0 down and the amount of chances we created and quality we showed at the top end of the pitch is really, really good. I would probably hate to be a goalkeeper in this team at the moment, but one thing I know we’ve got is goals and we’re just going to have to outscore teams until we can find a way of getting far better concentration in games.

"The players were good in the second half. I’m delighted because I told them this is the only opportunity you canl get in your careers at the moment to play against a Premier League side is in the FA Cup. A year is a long time, so do you want to wait a year and watch Newport in the second round draw or do you want to try and get in that third round?”

Posh are in action again on Tuesday in the EFL Trophy as they host Crystal Palace U21s in their final group game. Nicholas Bilokapic is set to continue in goal with Chris Conn-Clarke set to make his return to action after injury.