Newport County 0, Grimsby Town 0
Doom-mongers will say this was a drab match Newport County failed to win, but it would be wrong to suggest that manager Graham Westley cannot keep the Exiles up on the evidence of this match.
Yes, they were poor going forward, but kept things tight and gave little away.
Newport are unbeaten in six matches and now travel to play mid-table Cambridge United on Saturday.
While County head to Cambridge, there is another big fixture with relegation threatened Leyton Orient and Notts County clashing in London.
Newport are now four points adrift at the bottom because Orient went to Plymouth Argyle and won 3-2 last night, a result which was far from helpful to Westley’s men.
County’s lowest home attendance of the season, only 1,868, watched their team struggle over the 90 minutes. There were few chances, only a few moments of excitement in a match played on an absolutely awful pitch.
They could take heart from the fact that Cheltenham lost 2-1 against Stevenage and manager Dave Jones’ Hartlepool slipped up 3-0 against Luton Town.
Westley made two changes from the draw against Doncaster with Michael Flynn replacing Frenchman Maxime Blanchard in central midfield and Josh Sheehan recalled in favour of Aaron Williams.
Flynn, who was making his first start in League Two since May 2015 played alongside Mitch Rose, while Sheehan played just behind the front two of Craig Reid and Ryan Bird.
Newport were defensively sound, but lacked ideas going forward. Grimsby conceded five goals in their last game, against Crewe, but County rarely looked likely to score even one.
Both teams were dire, neither deserved to win and County will take the positives from a sixth successive unbeaten match and focus on Cambridge United away this Saturday.
County: Day, Jones, Nelson (Williams, 88), O’Brien, Pipe, Flynn, Rose, Sheehan (Gordon, 75), Butler, Reid (Samuel, 64), Bird. Subs not used: Bittner, Barnum-Bobb, Demetriou, Owen-Evans
Referee: John Busby
Attendance: 1,868.
