FLYNN LAMENTS GOAL DROUGHT
THE reality of his side’s lack of goals this season has hit home to Newport County manager Michael Flynn. Without a league goal in almost seven hours of football, Flynn has conceded his team needs a miracle to match last season’s heroics of reaching the play-offs. Their only chance of any glory this campaign will come at Rodney Parade on Wednesday night when they meet Salford City in a game that will determine who goes to Wembley for the Leasing.com Trophy final.
“Unless there is a massive turnaround, or we go and win every game 1-0 from now on, then it’s going to be difficult to make the play-offs,” admitted Flynn.
“We’ll never give up on it, we’ll always keep going, but it is looking tougher and tougher.
“I’ve just said to the players, ‘if we put our hands on our hearts, do you think the amount of goals we’ve scored is going to get us into the playoffs?’ The honest answer is no.
“I think we played some really good football in the first half, but then we gave them a goal and it killed us. It’s frustrating, but they’ve tried hard and I think the better team lost.
“That group of players worked their socks off for us with all the injuries.
“I don’t think you can ever question their commitment.”
“There were a lot of positives, but I would have rather had one or two more negatives and got the win.”
It was at Field Mill last season that County kept their cool in the second leg of the play-off semi-final to book their ticket to Wembley after a penalty shootout.
This result saw them drop three places to 16th and they are now 12 points off the play-off places with a couple of games in hand.
The conditions ensured that the quality from both teams was below par, and a horrible miss kick by Mansfield’s Harry Charlsey almost gifted Newport a goal in the 24th minute. Jordan Green took up the running on a counter-attack, but ignored Tristan Abrahams and ended up running into difficulty and losing a gilt-edged chance.
Five minutes later the home side hit the front thanks to a mistake by the normally reliable Mickey Demetriou, who gave away possession.
This time the counter-attack worked out as Rose fired in from the edge of the area after Nicky Maynard’s
effort had been blocked.
Rose then forced Tom King to make two saves in quick succession at the end of the first half and Mansfield were certainly on top as the teams went into the break.
Flynn brought on Lewis Collins on for Tristan Abrahams at the start of second half and then saw defender Ryan Inniss get booked as the home side’s pressure mounted.
MANSFIELD TOWN: Stone; Sweeney, Pearce (captain), Watts, White, Tomlinson, Bishop, Charsley, Hamilton, Rose, Maynard. Subs: Olejnik, Benning, Preston, Davies, Evans, Clarke, Knowles.
NEWPORT COUNTY: King; Inniss, Bennett, Demetriou; Labadie (captain), Willmott, Gorman, Green; Amond Waters, Abrahams. Subs unused: Howkins, Dolan, Matt, Collins, Woodiwiss.
REFEREE: Dean Whitestone.