James Rowberry issues verdict on Newport County’s recent shortcoming

Newport Manager James Rowberry has urged his side to ‘defend better’ after his side drew 3-3 to Oldham Athletic on Saturday.

Whilst the six-goal thriller would have been a great game for the neutral, The Exiles missed out on a valuable three points to help keep themselves at pace with the contenders for the top three.

The Latics pulled the game back to lead 3-2 against Rowberry’s side despite being a man down, although Mickey Demetriou struck late to salvage a point for Newport.

In an interview with Newport County’s media team yesterday, Rowberry said: “I’m disappointed. We didn’t defend well enough today, that’s the bottom line of it.

“We’ve conceded three goals at home, scored three, had however many shots on goal, but ultimately we haven’t defended well enough today.

“We’ve got to stop crosses better, we’ve got to defend balls in our box better, we’ve got to make sure that our clearances are spot on because (otherwise) teams will capitalise on it.

“I knew this would be a tough game. I knew it would be extremely, extremely hard. A John Sheridan team is extremely hard to play against and they proved that.”

Newport dominated the game – 63 percent possession and 37 shots to Oldham’s 14 – but they couldn’t convert the the number of chances created, however, xG had Newport at 2.8 and Oldham overperforming with 1.1.

Backing up Rowberry’s claims as it shows Oldham didn’t create the volume of quality chances as Newport did, they were just clinical on the day whilst the Welsh club weren’t.

Conceding from a corner, near post, and a ball into the back post, The Exiles’ defenders gave too much respect to The Latics’ attack who took advantage of the lacklustre defending.

Sheridan’s side were lucky not to have conceded more, but his