Mickey Demetriou admitted Newport County AFC’s second-half display at Morecambe was not good enough as the Exiles surrendered a half-time lead to lose at the Globe Arena.
Joss Labadie gave County a deserved lead on 15 minutes and the Exiles could have extended their lead further in what was a dominant first-half performance. However, they failed to find the net again and Morecambe rallied in the second half with goals from Cole Stockton and John O’Sullivan ensuring County left empty-handed.
Demetriou, who only returned from a 17-week absence in last weekend’s 1-1 draw with Stevenage, was pleased with the opening 45 minutes and felt the Club were in a good position to take all three points at the break.
“We’re very disappointed, let’s not dress it up we weren’t good enough in the second half,” said Demetriou.
“I’m not sure what changed, in the first half we were all over them and battered them and they probably did the same thing to us in the second half.”
"We didn’t win our battles, we didn’t win the first balls or the second balls."
"Obviously their first goal has come in and they were on the up. They’ve made a few changes and it’s helped them get into the game.
“That first goal killed us and deflated us a bit. Their second goal, he’s come a long way and we should have stopped that.
“We need to learn from that because no one is happy in that changing room.
“It’s three points we should have had, if we’re being honest, with the performance in the first half but it’s a game of two halves and we didn’t back that up.
“We are our own worst critics. Don’t think we’re going to go in there and forget all about that because it’s a long journey home and it’s going to be playing on the boys’ minds.
“Why it happened? That’s what we need to work out. We need to work out why it changed so much in the second half but we’re going to stick together.”
Despite a frustrating afternoon in Lancashire, 29-year-old Demetriou is looking ahead rather than behind with three games to come in seven days, starting at Exeter City on Boxing Day.
“We’ve got a long season left and the season is not going to dwell on this game. We’re a good bunch of lads and we need to start performing,” he added.
“There are nine points available.
“It would have been nice to start the festive period off nicely but it’s not happened so we have to go and give it our best at Exeter and hopefully we can put our first-half performance into that game and try and do it for 90 minutes.”