NEWPORT County AFC manager Michael Flynn admitted his side never recovered from a nightmare start against Oxford United.
The visitors raced into a 2-0 lead at Rodney Parade through a Mickey Demetriou own goal and a screamer from Shandon Baptiste.
Gavin Whyte made it 3-0 in stoppage time after teammate Jamie Hanson was sent off for a late challenge on Antoine Semenyo, who could not finish the match.
"You can’t start any game like that," said Flynn.
"It’s tough to come back from that in any match and Oxford are a good team from the league above. It was a terrible, terrible start from us.
"Between the two areas I thought we did quite well, second-half we were the better team and we were just chasing it at the end [when we conceded the third].
"But we didn’t really create too much and when we did we took the wrong options. It’s frustrating because the way we started the game killed it off.
"It sums it up they had a man sent off and we had to lose a player injured with no subs left so it was 10 against 10, it topped the night off."
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