Newcastle boss Chris Hughton has told his players to carry on doing what they are doing after they took another significant step towards promotion.

The Magpies' 3-0 home win over Swansea was their fifth on the trot and the fourth since Hughton was appointed permanent boss.

But perhaps more importantly, it left them eight points clear of third-placed Leicester, who conceded a late equaliser at Scunthorpe.

Hughton said: "We are very pleased. It is the most important gap for anybody who is occupying the top two places.

"All we can do is continue to do what we are doing and be hopeful that the other results go for us."

Newcastle had the game won within 28 minutes as they flew out of the traps to hit Swansea, who had gone 11 games with a defeat, hard.

Striker Marlon Harewood put them ahead with just eight minutes gone when he ran on to Fabricio Coloccini's flick-on and headed firmly past keeper Dorus de Vries.

It was 2-0 13 minutes later when winger Jonas Gutierrez, who has so often in the last two seasons got into good positions and not produced telling crosses, did his job to perfection to allow Peter Lovenkrands to head home his first goal since returning to St James' Park.

The visitors were opened up once again with 28 minutes gone when Lovenkrands turned provider, crossing for Harewood to head home adeptly at the near post.

However, City refused to accept their fate and it took fine saves before the break from Steve Harper to deny Cedric van der Gun and Andrea Orlandi, and from substitute Tim Krul to keep out Nathan Dyer and Angel Rangel after it.

The Magpies were also indebted to goal-line clearances from Jose Enrique and Danny Simpson for their 10th clean sheet of the campaign, although Nile Ranger and Alan Smith passed up glorious late opportunities to increase the margin of victory.

Swansea boss Paulo Sousa admitted his side had been caught cold by the atmosphere at St James' Park, but was happy with the way they responded.

He said: "In my opinion, we deserved much more than this result, but it can be a great experience for us.

"We started afraid and we conceded twice from counter-attacks, but we made some corrections before half-time and then in the second half, we had better control of the game.

"But this is Newcastle, it's very difficult for anyone to catch them.

"West Brom have a great squad with great quality and they could do, but I think Newcastle have more claims on the championship."