TRANMERE boss Micky Mellon admitted his League Two promotion hopefuls got what they deserved after being beaten by Newport County AFC.

The Exiles took the spoils 4-2 at Rodney Parade thanks to a pair of late strikes after Rovers had threatened to burgle a point.

Tranmere remain third in the table but are without a win in four games and their boss knows they must up their game to remain in contention.

"I'm disappointed with the whole performance," he said. "We never really got going but we got ourselves back into it and then we did ourselves in at the end.

"We didn't show enough character needed at this stage of the season to try to win games of football.

"We let the travelling fans down and all the ones at home. We never found that fight that's needed in a big game like this.

"We've had a frank conversation in the changing room because we were nowhere near the intensity levels needed to get a result in games like this.

"I don't think we won any of the personal battles and I don't know how you're going to get a result if you don't win any. It was a really poor performance."