Jazzi Barnum-Bobb made his first start of the season during the 2-1 CheckaTrade Trophy defeat to Swansea City U23s at Rodney Parade on Tuesday night.
That follows his second-half cameo appearance at Forest Green Rovers in the opening round of the competition, replacing David Pipe at half-time for his opening minutes of the season.
All this comes after Barnum-Bobb made 34 appearances for the club last season, yielding three goals, meaning the defender has now reached 50 games for the Exiles.
Post-Match, he spoke exclusively to iFollow Exiles about the CheckaTrade Trophy, his hopes for the remainder of this campaign and the Exiles next game at Forest Green Rovers on Saturday.
On the Swansea game…
“We knew it was going to be a tactical game. Swansea came to play football, we knew the young boys would come here to try and impress.
“To be honest, I thought we did quite well. I think we matched them up, tried to get among them, created a lot of chances and it was just unfortunate that we couldn’t take those chances.
“We couldn’t get the win tonight which was unfortunate. They only had two or three chances and unfortunately two of them end up in the net but that’s just how it goes sometimes.”
On making his second appearance of the season…
“I hope I proved myself tonight.
“It has been a frustrating one for me, waiting around while the team has been doing well.
“It’s been really good to see the side doing fine, the lads are performing to a high level and it’s just been about waiting patiently to get the chance from the gaffer.
“I’m glad the manager gave me a chance tonight, got another 90 minutes under my belt which was pleasing.
“It’s not just me, there are a lot of boys in that team that haven’t been playing much recently.
“We all knew as much as we wanted to win as a team, that we were all fighting to show the gaffer what we can do. I think he’s happy with us, every day we are trying to impress him in training, it’s nice to get a game tonight and hopefully we showed the fans that came what we can do.”
On how he hopes to break into the team on a regular basis…
“You just have to be patient.
“You have to back yourself and believe in your ability, it’s a long season and I feel as a player that I can help the team this season.
“The team are doing well at the moment but I still feel like I can help them as-well so every day I’ll be training hard and if I get another chance, I will be trying to impress and hopefully I’ve done that today.”
On the other players who came back into the starting line-up…
“I thought Lamar was brilliant today. We see it in training everyday so I don’t think it will be too long until he does that in the League. We all know what he can do.
“Shawn scores a lot of goals, and he got another one today. Calaum unfortunately had to come off tonight through injury but I thought he did well. I can’t shed too much light on that injury, I know it is a problem with his hamstring but I’m sure the physio can give you a better idea about it.
“Tom Owen-Evans did well, there were a lot of boys who have stepped in today and done well.
“It’s just a shame that we couldn’t get the win that would have put the cherry on the top of the cake really.”
On suffering a first defeat at Rodney Parade since March…
“We’ll call it a league record now at Rodney Parade.
“It was mentioned before the game, we obviously wanted to keep that going, and it’s disappointing because like I said, I think we did enough to win the game.
“It’s just a shame that two or three chances didn’t go in tonight, an unlucky own-goal from Jay Foulston tonight who I thought was brilliant.
“We’ve got the record in the league and we’ll try to keep that going whenever we next play at home.”
On Forest Green this Saturday…
“They are a good side.
“I think the form we’re in makes us feel like we can beat anyone. We will go to Forest Green, I’m not saying that we expect the three points but we will back ourselves as we feel like we can beat them.
“Hopefully, we can produce another good performance and bring home the three points on Saturday.”