NEWPORT County AFC captain Mark Byrne believes Saturday’s trip to Dagenham is a must win game for the Exiles, who he admits have to “grow up quickly.”

The Exiles remain rooted to the bottom of League Two after Saturday’s painful 2-1 reverse to Morecambe, won with a 93rd minute penalty.

However, ahead of a trio of games against the sides around them at the bottom of League Two – Dagenham, Carlisle and Crawley – Byrne is insistent that all is not lost at Rodney Parade.

“It’s cruel, as cruel as it gets, it’s just so frustrating,” he said of Saturday’s defeat.

“We are saying the same thing every week, or the majority of the weeks, we are playing well but not getting results.

“And it’s down to results, because that’s football. We are kicking ourselves in the teeth every single time.

We’ve been unlucky, without a doubt, but we’ve got to get wins.

“Whatever anyone says, we have to go to Dagenham on Saturday and get the three points.

“Once we win, we’ll go on a run. It is must win for me, we can’t fall too far behind, can’t let the gap get too big.

“A few wins will shoot us straight up.

“At this stage I’m not concerned where we are, but we need to become men quickly, we need to grow up collectively.”

Byrne admitted he felt County only had themselves, rather than the referee, to blame for the last-gasp penalty.

“I thought it was a penalty all day, Aaron (Hayden, defender) has to win the header in the first place, if he does that there is no decision to make,” he said.

“He’s let it bounce and he’s got ahead of him, got the wrong side and he’s got a clip. So for me it’s a penalty.

“Individual mistakes are costing us every week, but on Saturday we could have been 3-0 up before they even had an attack.

“We need to grow up into men. That’s our problem. We are making naive mistakes every week and we had to come away with at least a point.

“We know we are a good football side, but we don’t want to be that team who everyone praises, but don’t win, who play well and lose every week.

“I’d rather play badly and win and we haven’t done that yet.

“We don’t have any scrappy goals coming our way at the moment; we need something like that to turn it for us.”

Byrne felt a potentially blossoming midfield partnership with youngster Tom Owen-Evans was one positive.

“Tom did really well, I said to him before to just sit in beside me and he did just that, we got on the ball a lot in the first half,” he said.

“I thought he did really well.”