Boden’s dozen is fillip for Feeney
WARREN FEENEY is confident he has now got the squad to keep Newport County in League Two after watching his side rescue a point with a late leveller at Exeter City.
Feeney snapped up prolific non-league striker Tom Meechan from St Neots Town this week and extended the loans of Chelsea goalkeeper Mitchell Beeney, Preston defender Ben Davies and Conor Wilkinson, the Bolton striker. Another new arrival, Dean Morgan, came off the bench to help earn the visitors a point at St James Park.
But it was top-scorer Scott Boden, signed by previous manager Terry Butcher last summer, who headed in his 12th goal of the season six minutes from time to cancel out Jordan Tillson’s 51st-minute opener for Exeter.
“I’m disappointed we didn’t win the game – we had the better chances,” said Feeney, who has 11 points from 18 since he replaced John Sheridan as Exiles boss.
“To come here and hit the post twice in the first half through Conor Wilkinson and then get beaten by a set-piece was disappointing.
“But we’ve got the personnel now to turn it around and we did that. There’s a lot of belief in our team.
“Bodes was a bit down last week after he missed one in the first half but he played well and got the equaliser in the end. It wasn’t his best game but he popped up with the goal again and it keeps his run going.
“We’ve got a great work ethic in this team and I’m confident that we’ve got more than enough to not just stay up but hopefully climb the table.”
Newport are now seven points clear of the relegation zone, while Exeter stay 13th in the table, and Grecians manager Paul Tisdale felt his side could have edged a tight encounter played in swirling wind and rain.
“It was a really difficult day to play football and we didn’t play as well as I would have hoped,” he said.“It was difficult conditions, but I still would have hoped for more. “We have got a point and I am grateful for that because it was in the balance.
“We had a very strong breeze in our favour in the first half and we didn’t use it. The conditions were really difficult in terms of the surface and we were complicating it.
“They showed at the end of the game how to use those conditions. They used them pretty well and I have very few complaints about the second half.
“But in the first quarter of the game we just did not use those conditions as well as they did.We just did not make the right choices.”