By Rob Carbon
Matty Dolan has good memories of the One Call Stadium in Mansfield and would love to add to them tonight when Newport County continue their drive for promotion.
Two years ago, it was Dolan’s penalty in the shoot-out against The Stags that sent his side into the League Two play-off final.
County then suffered heartbreak at Wembley, but Dolan is hoping to make up for that by going up this season.
Nigel Clough’s side may be struggling this season, but they picked up a good point in a goalless draw at Exeter City in their last outing and will certainly present a challenge to Newport, who ended Bolton’s 14-match unbeaten run on Monday with a 1-0 win.
Mickey Demetriou will be back for the game after serving a one match suspension, but the man who scored the vital goal on Easter Monday, Nicky Maynard, won’t be able to play against his parent club.
“We put a bit of pressure on ourselves after the defeat at Barrow, where we dominated the game and got caught out with a few mistakes, but it was a massive win over Bolton,” said Dolan.
“Now, we have to use that win as a big confidence boost and go and put a run together as we have done in previous years and finish the season off strongly. It’s frustrating to think where we could have been had we done better than six wins in the last 22 games.
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“But you can’t look back in football. You have to look forward and we’ve got a game in hand and if we win it then we are only one point off the automatic promotion spots.
“It was a different type of win over Bolton to the ones we’ve been used to this season. There wasn’t much free-flowing football. It was bodies on the line time.
“The play-off push two years ago wasn’t always pretty. Did anyone think the 1-1 draw that we ground out at Macclesfield was going to be important? We were frustrated, but we didn’t lose.
“That’s what we’ve got to do now, take care of our business and let things fall into place. It would be pretty historic for us to get promoted and there is a massive desire to reach that goal.”
Dolan has been one of the standout players for County all season in his new role in the middle of a back three. He has also managed to chip in with six goals to make him the joint top scorer.
Five of those goals have come from the penalty spot and it was from that distance he wrote his name into County folklore with his cool, calm strike to clinch the play-off semi-final victory in 2019.
“That is a nice memory to have, but a win on Friday would be just as big with where we are going. The games are getting fewer and fewer, so it becomes easier to just concentrate on one at a time,” he added.
“We just have to leave everything out there in the last eight games. Then we can look at ourselves in the mirror whether we get automatic promotion or finish in the play-offs. We have to keep striving for those goals.”