Newcastle United 1 Burton Albion 0

THIS was another occasion when Matt Ritchie was spot on. It is a good job he was because an utterly bizarre night for referee Keith Stroud could quite easily have inflicted real damage on Newcastle United’s title charge.

What matters is that Ritchie’s second goal of the night – his first was ruled out by the officials in crazy circumstances – proved enough to secure back-to-back home wins and that has lifted Rafael Benitez’s side back to the top of the Championship.

The Magpies now have a handsome ten point gap over the play-off zone with just six matches remaining and Benitez, who will never say so, can pretty much start to think about life back in the top-flight.

But how things could have been different against Burton. It was not only Benitez thanking Ritchie at the end for his brilliance in front goal. Stroud, and his assistants, would have struggled to get out of St James’ Park had the division’s strugglers left with the points.

Even after the game there was no real sense of why Ritchie’s first half penalty was ruled out. The 27-year-old was clinical enough from the spot after the referee awarded the kick on half hour when Dwight Gayle went down under a challenge from Tom Flanagan. What happened next left more questions than answers.

The assistant referee Matthew McGrath and Stroud decided to pull play back and award Burton an indirect free-kick. Where it was taken from was where Gayle had encroached before the kick was taken.

Rather than a retake, by the laws of the game, Burton restarted with a free-kick after all the confusion and complaints from the Newcastle camp. To further cloud the issue, the story at half-time was that the free-kick was conceded because of a foul which nobody else in St James’ Park saw.

No wonder, then, that a crowd of more than 48,000 Geordies, including Benitez and Co, were so relieved when Ritchie did the damage with his 15th goal of a productive campaign to seal the points in the second half.

After Brighton showed once again on Tuesday that they will stay in the title race for the duration by beating Birmingham comfortably, Newcastle needed to follow suit by making light work of opposition still threatened by relegation. It wasn’t as easy as that.

Benitez’s decision to freshen things up seemed to have worked, with his side starting brightly. Ayoze Perez, one of three changes, was one of the players to have a shot at goal early on too, only for his goalbound effort to be blocked en route.

There was also a decent claim for a penalty waved away when Gayle was chopped down in the area by defender John Brayford, as the Burton five-man defence soon found that they would be in for a busy night.

But Burton’s style of play was to frustrate and counter quickly. Only offside prevented them from making the most of their first charge forward, while Jackson Irvine will wonder how he didn’t do more with a great chance from the second.

Irvine, playing further forward than the two other visiting midfielders, watched a loose ball drop in his direction as he stood unmarked just inside the Newcastle box. He shaped his body perfectly and volleyed sweetly, but it flew the wrong side of the crossbar to the relief of goalkeeper Karl Darlow.

But what happened in the opening half hour didn’t compare to the craziness of what occurred next. Gayle winning a penalty, Ritchie converting it and then play restarting with a free-kick to Burton in their own box, nowhere near from the incident or the spot, was one of the strangest moments of the season.

No wonder Benitez, the players and his backroom team spent an age trying to persuade fourth official Tony Harrington, the referee and his assistant McGrath for a rethink or at least retake. They got neither.

Newcastle’s loss was Burton’s gain, even if it incensed everyone inside St James’ Park and Gayle almost made the officials pay by finding the net instantly. His low shot, after beating the defence, was stopped by the feet of Jon McLaughlin.

The official word, albeit still clouded, arrived during the break and it was claimed by the officials that there had been a foul committed on the edge of the area as Ritchie struck the spot-kick. Either way, it was goalless and Newcastle had 45 minutes to ensure the incident didn’t matter.

Stroud was given a barrage of abuse as he restarted play, but the home side had to come up with a way of ensuring three points were still secured. The fans played their part too, constantly trying to encourage the men in black and white to attack.

The chances kept arriving, although mainly from distance. Perez had the best of those early ones in the second half when his low shot took a deflection and rolled inches wide of the goalkeeper’s left-hand post.

Ritchie was lively throughout again and McLaughlin plucked one of his well struck shots out of the air as it arrowed towards the corner of the net; seconds later Shelvey had his own drive that went close and Flanagan denied Diame.

There was a sense that the opener was coming, but there was relief all round when it arrived with 22 minutes remaining. Ritchie was not to be left frustrated this time, instead Stroud allowed his beautiful right-foot curler from 20 yards inside the far corner to stand.

That should have been the starting point for Newcastle to take complete control. Instead Burton pressed more and threatened on a number of occasions to level, even if Darlow was only really asked to gather rather than stop shots.

What truly matters though is that, after a dramatic and unusual night, Newcastle took another step towards the Premier League.