NEWPORT County AFC may have picked up their first win of the season on Saturday but manager Michael Flynn is still demanding a more ruthless approach as attention switches to tomorrow’s Carabao Cup tie at Cambridge United.

Following a 3-0 opening day defeat at Mansfield Town, County got their League Two campaign off the ground on Saturday with a 1-0 victory over Crewe Alexandra at Rodney Parade thanks to Padraig Amond’s header and Joe Day’s penalty save.

But Flynn was adamant that the match should have been dead and buried before Day palmed away Paul Green’s spot-kick on 66 minutes.

“There was a lot of doom and gloom about last weekend but we played some really good stuff [at Mansfield],” said the Exiles boss.

“We made some sloppy mistakes and we missed a few chances at the end but it wasn’t a dreadful performance.

“We missed some good chances again [against Crewe] and that’s our Achilles heel at the minute – we’re not killing teams off and I’m getting a bit bored of saying it.

“I want us to be a little more ruthless in their box. We need to just finish those chances and then I can hopefully relax a little bit more before the final whistle.

“Mark Harris was a real handful and he’ll only get better and better,” he added.

“Padraig Amond as usual was outstanding and Josh Sheehan was getting himself in some good positions but with that little bit extra quality we would have scored a few more.”

But one goal was enough and Flynn was happy that his team responded to last week’s setback as he expected them to.

“I’m not getting carried away because we won and I wasn’t too down last week when we lost,” he said.

“If you listened to half the comments on social media last week we were relegated and Crewe were the champions and there was no point in us playing but it’s a funny old game, football.”

Flynn may use tomorrow’s trip to Cambridge to give players like Nick Townsend, Jay Foulston, Tyler Forbes, Tyreeq Bakinson and Charlie Cooper more game-time but he wants to win the cup tie.

“Cambridge is always a difficult place to go and it will be another challenge that we’ve got to be up for,” he said.

“Without looking too far ahead, if we can get through we could get a good draw and some more money in the coffers.

“There will be a few changes because I think people need games to get them up to speed but it won’t be to rest people or weaken the team.”

Mark O’Brien, Robbie Willmott and Keanu Marsh-Brown missed Saturday’s win due to injury and David Pipe picked up a problem late on.

O’Brien and Willmott are likely to be out again and Pipe looks set to drop out but Marsh-Brown could feature at the Abbey Stadium.

“Keanu has got a knee injury but he should be OK for Tuesday,” said the manager.

“Pipey was struggling at the end so he’ll probably miss Tuesday but it’ll give someone else a chance to get up to match pace.”