STREWTH! So, we won’t be seeing Joe Ledley in a Newport County AFC shirt.

The Flaming Galah has been training with County for months but he’s finally rejected a move back to South Wales in favour of a short stint in New South Wales.

Ledley called Exiles boss Michael Flynn on Sunday to inform him that he would be heading Down Under to sign for Newcastle Jets on a short-term contract until May.

The Jets, who are managed by the 33-year-old’s former Wales teammate Carl Robinson, are second-from-bottom in the Australian A-League.

But the lure of the Aussie summer, and a no-doubt healthy pay packet, proved more enticing to Ledley than the prospect of League Two scraps in the wind and rain at Rodney Parade, Blundell Park or Boundary Park.

Shortly after the end of his brief spell at Charlton Athletic in January, Ledley had told the BBC that he wanted to move closer to home and he insisted that he still dreamed of playing at Euro 2020.

But this move is a sign that the Euro 2016 hero has almost certainly given up on forcing his way back into Ryan Giggs’ squad for this summer’s tournament.

If that’s the case then it’s hard to blame him for taking up an attractive offer in a league that is probably better-suited to him than the rough-and-tumble of forth-tier football at this stage of his career.

South Wales Argus:

As for County, they will move on quickly.

Flynn has other priorities as he looks to bring in a right-back and a goalkeeper and he will be delighted that he no longer has to answer media questions about the former Cardiff City and Celtic man.

And, having played just one competitive fixture in 18 months, it would have been a big ask for Ledley to make a major impact for the Exiles this season.

It would have been exciting to see a player of Ledley’s calibre in amber shirt and, who knows, he could have been a key man in a promotion push next season.

And, if his desire to play closer to home is genuine, he may even be persuaded to reconsider an offer from County in the summer – if it’s still on the table.

But nobody at Rodney Parade will be losing too much sleep over the player’s decision to go elsewhere right now.

The Exiles have been burned before with former Wales internationals, with Darcy Blake opting to give up the game after a short stint at the club in 2014 and Andrew Crofts making only 12 appearances due to a series of injuries last season.

Not since Jason Bowen graced the wing at Spytty Park between 2004 and 2008 have County got real value out of a former Wales cap.

South Wales Argus:

The club was also linked with a move for Wilfried Bony earlier this season.

Unlike Ledley, there was never any real prospect of the former Swansea City striker agreeing a deal.

But the link to the Ivory Coast star earlier this season reminded me of an extraordinary story I’d long forgotten – the time that County signed Nigerian international Ade Akinbiyi (above), for all of 24 hours in January 2011.

Speaking the day before a trip to Southport in the Conference, then-Exiles boss Dean Holdsworth hailed the move for the 36-year-old striker as a real coup.

“Ade will be a good signing for the club and will meet the team on Monday at training,” he said.

“We wanted to strengthen our forward line and Ade has a wealth of experience at Football League level.”

And Exiles winger Graeme Montgomery excitedly told the Argus that Akinbiyi’s “Premier League know-how” would help them “kick-on and secure a play-off place” that season.

But, after a dispiriting 2-1 defeat at Haig Avenue, Holdsworth has mysteriously changed his tune on the striker.

“We've made a decision, myself and the board, to not proceed any further," he revealed in the post-match interview.

“We'll work... we'll look at players and I'm sure there will be [other signings] but right now we've got to make sure we look after the players and stick together and get ready for Tuesday night [at Tamworth].”

It emerged before that trip to Tamworth that Holdsworth himself would be leaving for Aldershot, County missed out on the play-offs and Akinbiyi finished his career at Colwyn Bay four years later.

The farcical episode was a sad way for Holdsworth’s successful time in Newport to end and it demonstrates how far the club has come in the last nine years.