Graham Coughlan looking to strengthen in January as Newport drop late points

Newport manager Graham Coughlan admitted he would have to strengthen in January after his side “chucked away” two points as Grimsby earned a late 1-1 League Two draw at Rodney Parade.

Omar Bogle looked to have secured a hard-fought win for the hosts when he poked in Shane McLoughlin’s cross from close range after 72 minutes.

But sloppy defending allowed Danny Rose to level six minutes later as he converted substitute Gavan Holohan’s centre.

Seb Palmer-Houlden had hit the crossbar for County before their opener, while Holohan wasted a glorious chance to win it for the visitors at the death.

And Coughlan was livid with his side for letting Grimsby back into the contest.

“We deserved to win it and should have won it but again our unreliability and lack of clean sheets (have cost us),” he said.

“There are one or two players that I want to be able to trust but they let me down. They don’t normally do that but that was a very soft goal against us.

“We are just chucking points away too easily and I’ve got to address that, one of two players will need to be changed to stop that.

“I know that my remit was to stay in League Two and survive but I want a little bit more than that and I think we can achieve a little bit more than that with one or two fresh faces.”

Coughlan’s men are 17th in the table – two points above Grimsby in 18th. Only four sides in the division have conceded more than their 39 goals.

“Whether it’s mentality, leadership or the same bodies playing week in and week out, there are a number of factors in there,” added the Exiles boss.

“We have played 30 games (in all competitions) and have only got six clean sheets. That is nowhere near good enough.

“If you want to win games in League Two then you need to keep clean sheets, you can’t make mistakes the way that we are making them.

“There does come a time when you have to look for that little bit more quality.”

New Grimsby manager David Artell was pleased with the way his side responded to going behind.

“We showed really good character and resilience and we’re six unbeaten (in the league) now and there’s a little bit of momentum,” said the Mariners boss.

“I can’t say ‘pleased’ because we didn’t win, but I’d say ‘satisfied’ with what we’ve shown in patches.

“We could quite easily have lost it, but we probably should have won.

“The best chance of the game was for Gav (Holohan) right at the end but, having said that, he was terrific when he came on.”