IT’S getting close to the deadline for the club to sort out our future at Rodney Parade and I think everyone is agreed that we would love to play there for years to come.

It’s a Football League standard stadium and that’s where we all want to be so I think it’s massive for the future of Newport County AFC that we stay there.

The pitch has taken a bit of a hammering over the last few months but, in my opinion, that’s much more to do with the snow and heavy rain we’ve had rather than the fact that three teams are playing on it.

Nobody can do anything about the weather and, as I’ve said before, the groundstaff have been performing miracles to get so many games on.

It’s a big improvement on Spytty on and off the pitch and I think it’s very important that we stay.

Everyone knows the problems the club had with the pitch at Spytty and it would be a big backward step for the club if we went back there.

Everything about Rodney Parade is better.

The central location is so much more convenient for the fans because it means they can just get one bus there and back rather than two.

The facilities also help the club attract more revenue and sponsorship and us being there helps the rugby clubs make money too so everyone’s a winner as far as I see it.

The importance of our new home was clear in our win against Mansfield on Tuesday night.

After the frustrations of the draw against Tamworth it was a great win.

You could sense the crowd were really up for it on a bitterly cold night and they helped us over the line.

Mansfield came here with a lot of hype after they smashed eight past Barrow last weekend but we stood up to them and got a vital three points.

The clean sheet was just as important in my view. It’s the first time we’ve kept the opposition out since October and it’s a real step in the right direction.

That is what is going to get us promotion if we keep it up and the new system that we played certainly helped make us stronger at the back.

We went with three centre-backs and Byron Anthony, Tony James and Ismail Yakubu did a great job.

I sat in front of the back three and that allowed David Pipe and Andy Sandell to get forward more without leaving gaps at the back.

I’m happier going forward myself but it’s a job I’ve done before and it’s one I’m happy to do.

You don’t get noticed as much personally but I’m not bothered about that. It’s about getting results and as long as we’re winning I’ll play wherever the gaffer and Jimmy Dack want me to play.

If they want me to play right-back, left-back, centre-forward or start on the bench I don’t care as long as we keep winning and it gets us back in the Football League.

We certainly won’t be calling on the gaffer any time soon.

He likes to join in a game at the end of training sometimes and he thinks he’s the best player on the pitch but he let my side down on Thursday.

He definitely gives his all out there but he was the weak link at the back!

It was a good all-round performance against Mansfield but I thought Danny Crow worked his socks off up front.

Crowy sometimes doesn’t get the recognition because he hasn’t scored but I thought on Tuesday night he was very important in the win.

He won a lot of free-kicks and it was good to see him getting back to his best and looking fitter as well.

Christian Jolley got his first goal in a while. He’s a confidence player and he’s got that ability where he can pull goals out of nowhere.

And with Rhys Griffiths coming in this week and Aaron O’Connor not too far away from being fit again we should have plenty of goals in our locker.

Today’s match at Woking is important because we have to build on the result in the week with another win.

Woking beat us at home in October and they dragged us down there on a Tuesday night last month only for the game to be called off because of the snow.

They obviously saw we were missing Aaron and they fancied their chances of completing the double over us.

You can’t blame them for that I suppose but we would love to turn them over.