Newport County boss James Rowberry is confident his side have prepared in the correct way after a challenging week that concludes with the trip to Colchester tomorrow night.
Friday night’s match in Essex concludes a tough run on the County players who will have to play their third game in six days at Colchester after games at home to Swindon on Saturday and away at Crawley on Tuesday night.
“We’re going to be a little bit tired, naturally, because of the travelling,” Rowberry said.
“It’s not ideal going to Crawley on Tuesday night then Colchester on Friday night but we’ll prepare as well as we can with the resources we’ve got.
“We just run it as I’ve always known – we’ll rest and recover properly and provide the right nutrition, hydration and support from a physiotherapy perspective and utilise the cryochamber that we’ve been able to utilise yesterday which has been a massive help for us. With our sports science department with Tom (Gittoes) and Lewis (Binns), they’re quite at the forefront of modern techniques so I’m lucky to have those two on board.”
Our opponents tomorrow have had the same difficult schedule, but the U’s have the benefit of back-to-back home games while this is County’s second away game on the bounce.
“It's the same for Colchester in many ways – they’ve got to go again, it’s lucky for them that they’ve had two games at home. Odds might be stacked up against us, but I don’t see it that way, we just prepare the best we can with what we’ve got,” Rowberry continued.
County have two new absentees for the game, with skipper Matt Dolan unavailable due to EFL protocols following his withdrawal from the Crawley game due to concussion while Ed Upson will miss out with suspension.
Rowberry’s side go into Friday night off the back of a draw secured late on with yet another goal from Dom Telford – his 13th of the season in all competitions. The Exiles gaffer believed it was two points dropped because he wants his side to win every match they play but will take the point from Sussex.
“With regards to the first half, we took the ball really well – some might say it was a lot of passes. We didn’t get as many shots on goal as we usually get, it’s the lowest since I’ve been here.
“We’re averaging 14-plus shots a game with our Expected Goals being one of the highest in the league – that was low on Tuesday so I have to look at myself on that with regards to what can I do better. Sometimes we might have to go forward a little bit quicker but that’s not taking away from our principles that I want us to build, and I want us to be progressive in our style. I won’t go away from how we try and play.”