Michael Flynn admits he’s ‘massively disappointed’ at the way Newport County AFC lost a half-time advantage to suffer defeat at Morecambe in the final fixture before Christmas.
The Exiles were superb in the first half when dictating the play through midfield, captain Joss Labadie’s return from injury made the obvious difference and he opened the scoring when he crashed a shot off the crossbar and it bounced over the goal line.
County had a couple more opportunities to further assert their dominance – Shrimps goalkeeper Mark Halstead made two excellent saves – and they were punished for their inability to kill off the game when on top as Morecambe battled back in the second half.
It was the archetypal game of two halves but put simply, Morecambe scored twice in their period of dominance and County could only muster one.
Cole Stockton levelled proceedings on 68 minutes before Morecambe completed the comeback with a fine sweeping move, John O’Sullivan completing a five-pass sequence to toe poke an effort into the bottom corner.
Read the full match report.
“I’m massively disappointed,” Flynn affirmed. "From the first half, I just knew the amount of chances we missed was going to come back and haunt us.
“We should have been out of sight; it should have been 3-0 half time then we miss another good chance at 1-0.
“We then got beat up in the second half, the second half is a real down point because they let themselves and the club down.
“I know it’s easy to say because we lost the game in the second half, but everyone went missing. We lost too many challenges, there wasn’t any game management which is frustrating.
“We had nothing going forward second half, two chances away to the bottom club in the division isn’t good enough, although they’re probably not bottom anymore.
“Morecambe didn’t change too much in the second half, they kept the same formation. They brought on Kev [Ellison] who’s 40 and Cole Stockton, who bullied everyone he came up against. Kev made it difficult for those around him.
“Although it was poor from us, Morecambe’s second goal was a very well taken goal and I don’t want to take too much away from Morecambe by saying how bad we were. Their second goal was very good."
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