Newport County vow to stick to guns against Bristol Rovers

The Exiles are without centre-backs Josh Pask (hamstring), Priestley Farquharson (knee) and James Clarke (suspension) for the clash with their promotion rivals at Rodney Parade.

Rowberry has had plenty to mull over for the clash with the Pirates with the possibility of switching from a flat four to three at the back and the options of Cameron Norman, Matty Dolan and Scot Bennett alongside Mickey Demetriou.

READ MORE: County's defensive options

The manager is also without midfielder Robbie Willmott (calf) and striker Courtney Baker-Richardson (hamstring) but won’t approach the game against the in-form Pirates any differently despite having to tinker with his line-up.

“I don't see it as testing times, this is why we have got a squad,” said Rowberry. “If we have to do certain things in a slightly different way then we will stick to our principles.

“We won't deviate from our principles, I will make that quite clear. I am going to be quite stubborn on that because it's what I believe is right.

“Someone told me before I got the job to keep sticking to my principles and beliefs because the moment you go away from that is a moment of weakness and shows that you don’t believe in what you are doing.”

County boss James Rowberry

Rowberry also stressed that he still has plenty of welcome selection headaches.

“We've got injuries but we still have a really good squad,” he said. “The lads that didn't play against Forest Green trained on Wednesday morning and the levels were terrific.

“The way that the younger players and the older ones that weren't involved moved the ball and conducted themselves was first class.”

Rovers have rocketed up the table since the turn of the year thanks to an impressive run that has featured just one loss in 12 games.

However, County have performed strongly in a testing run against promotion rivals with draws against in-form Mansfield and leaders Forest Green either side of a 4-2 success against third-placed Tranmere.

"The Tranmere performance was very good and the way that we started against Forest Green was excellent in the way that we pressed, the way that we were in transition and the way that we tried to play,” said Rowberry.

"The goal shows what we are trying to be about, trying to build from the 'keeper but still having the option to play it up front to get runners off Rob Street quickly and effectively.

"From my point of view we are getting closer to where I believe we can be but we still have a bit of work to do.

"I am greedy in trying to get a perfect performance for 98 minutes, if we get that then we can get relative success.

"Sometimes you get to the stage where results are probably more important with the 12 games that we have got to go but I just want to focus purely on Bristol Rovers.”