CLOUGH EYES RECRUITS AT BOTH ENDS
NIGEL Clough will be looking to strengthen in both boxes over the summer after watching his Mansfield Town team tough out a 19th League Two draw this season.
The Stags, who have also shared the spoils six times during a current eight-game winless run, were the better side for large parts of their draw with promotion-chasing Newport.
Prior to Joss Labadie’s opening goal for the visitors, home pair Tyrese Sinclair and Stephen Quinn had both hit uprights.
But it took an 84th-minute equaliser from Sinclair – his first senior goal – to secure a deserved point, prompting Clough to reason: “We’ve still got a job to finish this season because we’re not safe yet, but next season I will be expecting to turn these draws into wins.
“For large patches of the game, we more than matched them and I don’t know how both chances that hit the inside of the posts didn’t go in or fall to somebody else. But we’ve shown we’re not that far away from the division’s top sides and we can get closer with good recruitment.”
On Sinclair – the son of former Chelsea and Leicester defender, Frank – Clough added: “He’s shown glimpses of his potential when he’s come on for us and he’s started the past two games and done well. Hopefully, he will be full of confidence now.”
Sinclair had been unlucky not to get on the scoresheet with less than three minutes on the clock when his header was scrambled to safety off a post by Newport goalkeeper Nick Townsend.
At the other end, Joe Ledley somehow managed to miss the target from two yards after meeting Josh Sheehan’s free-kick.
With the hour mark approaching, Quinn hit the inside of Townsend’s left-hand upright.
But Labadie went on to make the breakthrough, tackling midfielder George Maris 30 yards from the home goal, before charging into the box and firing a low shot under goalkeeper Aiden Stone.
Defeat would have been cruel on a home team and Sinclair secured a share of the spoils when he robbed Liam Shephard in the box and crashed an eight-yard shot into the roof of the net.
Newport boss Mike Flynn rued his team’s reluctance to have more shots and, despite also being disappointed with the nature of Mansfield’s equaliser, was happy on reflection with only the club’s second point from a possible 27 during their past nine trips to Field Mill. He said: “We were a bit tentative at times and need to pull the trigger a bit more. If you don’t buy a ticket, you’ll never win the lottery and, if you hit one, anything can happen. But after taking the lead, the goal we gave away was poor. We did not stop the cross, then there was a poor clearance and nobody tried to block the shot.”