James Rowberry hails Newport character after moving into top three

Newport boss James Rowberry paid tribute to his side’s “great resilience” after a late 1-0 win at Leyton Orient took them up to third place in League Two.

Cameron Norman’s close-range winner five minutes from time took the visitors into the automatic promotion places.

“I am delighted with the result,” Rowberry said.

“The way Orient play the game can sometimes stagnate what we like to do, but we showed great resilience in what we did tonight and it’s another clean sheet where we demonstrated our robustness to get a great away win.

“There is no doubt when you look at every Newport County team over the years there is always character and you can look back at the great escape year and we just need to keep adding to that so I am delighted with what we are doing.

“We are on 44 points now which an achievement in itself to get to that total. For the rest of the season we just need to keep doing what we are doing, moving forwards and take it game by game.

“It’s another example of a massive effort from the players, a collective effort from everyone at the football club. All the players, all the staff around the football club.”

Orient, in contrast, saw their winless league run extend to four games, while they had failed to score in their last three.

Defeat left Kenny Jackett’s side nine points outside the play-off places.

“There was nothing in the game but we made a mistake in a clearance and have given a corner away,” Jackett said.

“We were still living in that next moment with two free unmarked strikers in our box and they have got the decisive goal.

“It’s up to us as the home side to get the initiative going and, whilst I thought we passed the ball quite well tonight, we couldn’t get anyone on the ball who could go one versus one.

“We couldn’t get ourselves into pockets or areas where we were in behind people either by dribbling or a combination of passes.

“We lacked power going forward and it made it quite a sterile game. From our point of view we are trying to lift our fans and we did to a degree, but it wasn’t enough and ultimately it’s a frustrating night.

“We are not testing their goalkeeper enough, we didn’t get into the spaces enough and that stopped the flow of our game and it’s when we have been quite free-flowing this season that we have been at our best.”