OPPOSITION VIEW: Newport boss Coughlan hails 'absolutely outstanding' Burge

The Irishman made it three matches unbeaten since taking over as Exiles boss, but was left to rue his side's failure to make the most of their first-half dominance as they were denied all three points by Sam Hoskins' late leveller, two minutes into stoppage time.

Omar Bogle's second-minute strike had fired the Newport into the lead at Sixfields, the south Wales side's first goal at Sixfields since way back in 2012.

The Exiles looked to be on their way to a first win in Northampton since a 4-2 victory at the County Ground back November, 1977, until goal machine Hoskins popped up to break their hearts.

But Town were clearly indebted to man-of-the-match Burge, who pulled off a string of top class saves in the opening 45 minutes to keep his side in the contest.

Burge twice saved superbly from Bogle, and also denied Mickey Demetriou and Nathan Moriah-Welsh with brilliant saves, and Coughlan admitted to mixed emotions after the game.

"We are experienced enough to know that if you don't put your chances away, if you don't bury teams when you should, then you might pay for it, and Northampton are up there for a reason," said the Irishman, who replaced the sacked James Rowberry as Newport boss on October 20.

"Look, the chances we missed in the first half, I thought their goalkeeper was absolutely outstanding, but all in all, from experience, we did know that might come back to haunt us, and it did.

"I would have taken a point before the game to be honest, but we are disappointed that we didn't win because that's the mentality in that dressing room, we are winners.

"I can't really be greedy, well I can, because I wanted to win, and we should have won.

"For the equaliser, we need to get out and stop the cross, win that first contact when the ball comes in late, win the second ball, all the dirty side of League Two.

"If you switch off for one moment in this division then you will get hurt."

And he added: “We should have won and I don’t want to be one of those managers coming away from games saying ‘we could have, we should have, what if, if only’.

“We should have won at Mansfield (Exiles drew 0-0 at Field Mill on Tuesday) and Northampton against two top of the table teams but we didn’t and we need to look into the reasons why we didn’t.

“But I am very pleased with the chances that we are creating and the heart, desire and defensive side of things.

“We limited them to one or two shots, and that was excellent. It was the same at Mansfield, so overall the lads have really responded in my first 10 days or so.

“I am really proud of them and they are a top group of lads. It’s five points from nine, it should have been nine but I’m greedy.”