Mansfield Town

Skipper pleased to take three points in another ferocious battle with Newport.

Skipper John Dempster was pleased with our resilient defensive display as we kept our first clean-sheet of the campaign in last night’s battling victory over Newport County.

The win – our second on home soil in just four days – has lifted us up to 9th position in Sky Bet League One ahead of Saturday’s long trip to Dagenham & Redbridge.

“It was a tough night at the office, because Newport are a big strong side and they certainly put the ball into some difficult areas,” said Dempster.

“We stood up to be counted and there were some good performances, even though it wasn’t a particularly good game to watch or pleasing on the eye, but the important thing was to come out with three points and we did that.

“They probably had two half-decent chances, but when you look at the full 90 minutes then we probably edged it and had some good chances towards the end to finish the game off.

“It’s always been the way [a battle] with Newport. We’ve had some right ‘ding dongs’ at Newport and some hard games here, and they’ve got some big, strong, powerful players.”

He continued: “Last year, we may have possibly conceded towards the end. We conceded a few late goals last year, which was disappointing and something the gaffer has highlighted and wants us to improve.

“Hopefully, [keeping a clean-sheet] is a sign of good things to come in the future.”

The 30-year-old added: “We’ve had a very good start [to the season] I’d say. When the fixtures first came out, if you’d have said we’d take six points from the first three games, most people would have taken that.”

Our team will now be hoping to make it three successive victories when they make the long journey south to face Dagenham & Redbridge on Saturday.

The Daggers have endured an indifferent start to the new campaign, but registered their first three points of the season with a 2-0 victory at Hartlepool United last night.

Looking ahead to Saturday’s match, Dempster said: “I know one or two of their players and they are good, technical players, so that’s something that we’ll have to be aware of.

“In the past I think they’ve been a big, strong, horrible side to play against, but they play a lot of football now so that’ll be a different test [compared] to Newport.”