Newport County 1, Colchester United 1
Newport County earned their first League Two point since mid-November and manager Graham Westley confidently: “It is a turning point for us.”
The Exiles are still bottom of League Two and six points from safety with a game in hand, but they ended a run of eight successive defeats and moved off 17 points at last. They had been stuck on that total since November 19.
“It was important to stop that rot and it’s not easy to do it because momentum one way or the other – winning or losing – finds its way in,” said Westley.
“Credit to the team; I thought they were excellent at doing the things you have to do on that pitch to try to win football matches.
“Defensively we were dogged, we were resilient, we won our headers and our tackles and we went into the right areas going forward.
“We created enough moments probably to have won the game – good chances to win the football match.
“And we didn’t really concede chances at the other end.”
County went ahead when Josh Sheehan’s deflected shot from just inside the area flew in, but Colchester equalised through Chris Porter from a penalty.
The value of this draw became even clearer after the final whistle when Westley and his players found out that fellow strugglers Notts County had brought a halt to their run of 10 successive defeats by earning a draw.
Cheltenham, also deep in trouble, earned a win against Accrington Stanley.
Manager Westley made four changes to his starting line-up with Dan Butler, Darren Jones, Sheehan and Craig Reid all starting, while Dennison Myrie-Williams, Jazzi Barnum-Bobb, Ben Tozer and Jaanai Gordon stepped down.
New signings Michael Demetriou, Forent Bajaj and Alex Samuel were all among the substitutes along with 36-year-old Mike Flynn. whose last appearance in a County shirt was the 1-0 home defeat to Oxford United in May 2015, when he was sent off.
County switched to a 5-3-2 formation and they started well against a Colchester team who had earned seven wins and a draw from their previous eight fixtures.
Sheehan scored after 23 minutes when his shot went in via a deflection, but Colchester levelled on 35 minutes when Jones was judged to have fouled Kurtis Guthrie and U’s Porter fired home from the resulting penalty.
County used the playing conditions to good effect, firing the ball deep into corners and chasing hard. The pitch at Rodney Parade is desperately poor with the thick mud and sand making a passing game extremely difficult.
Aaron Williams and Craig Reid did well for Newport in attack, while Sheehan posed their biggest goal threat.
The next test for County in their battle to climb away from the bottom is at Barnet next Saturday, while they then have three of their next four fixtures at home.
They are against Hartlepool, Doncaster and Grimsby, while the away fixture in that run os a crunch clash with relegation rivals Cheltenham Town at their Whaddon Road stadium.
County: Day; Pipe, Jones, Nelson, O’Brien, Butler; Randall (Owen-Evans 66), Bennett, Sheehan; Reid (Bojaj 75), Williams
Subs not used: Bittner, Barnum-Bobb, Demetriou, Flynn, Samuel.
Referee: Michael Salisbury.