Rowberry convinced Exiles can push hard for promotion

NEWPORT County manager James Rowberry is convinced his side is capable of challenging for promotion this season, despite suffering his first League Two defeat on Saturday.

Rowberry’s men were beaten 2-1 by fellow promotion hopefuls Swindon Town as Jack Payne fired in an 88th-minute winner at Rodney Parade.

Dom Telford’s 12th goal of the season in the 74th minute looked to have salvaged a deserved point for the hosts after Finn Azaz had headed into his own net a minute earlier.

But Payne’s late strike sealed a seventh successive away win for Swindon and ended Rowberry’s perfect start to life in League Two.

“It’s disappointing but I thought we’d probably done enough to get a result out of the game with the chances we had,” said the Exiles boss (ABOVE).

“I think Swindon will be up there at the end of the season and I’d like to think that we wouldn’t be too far behind them.

“We have gone toe-to-toe with them and in certain moments, if we’d taken [advantage of ] those moments, I think it would have been a different game.”

Top scorer Telford went close in each half before his equalizer, while Oli Cooper was denied by Swindon goalkeeper Jojo Wollacott and Azaz hit the post in the first half before the visitors were sparked into life by second-half substitute Jonny Williams.

“It’s a tough league and when you’re able to bring on a Welsh international off your bench in League Two it shows the quality of what they’ve got, but that doesn’t take anything away from the quality we’ve got,” added Rowberry.

“Performance-wise, I’m relatively pleased. It was just that we didn’t convert our chances. We’re moving in the right direction.”

County are heading to Crawley Town tomorrow night and aiming to climb back into the play-off places after dropping to eighth on Saturday.

“You probably learn more from a defeat,” said Rowberry. “It’s a learning experience for the players and for me as well.

“I learned a lot about the side and where we’ve got to do better in certain moments of the game.

“We had to take one of our chances to build on that momentum and we didn’t but they are a good team and that’s football.

“We’ve just got to get on with it and prepare for Tuesday. We can’t have that disappointment hanging over us. We need to react positively and keep moving forward.”