NEWPORT County AFC manager Michael Flynn admits half his players are “dead on their feet” after drawing level with leaders Lincoln City at the top of League Two with victory at Oldham Athletic.

Tyreeq Bakinson’s second-half strike sealed victory at Boundary Park as County made light of injuries and absentees to claim a fourth successive win in the league.

And Flynn will take the opportunity to rotate his squad for tomorrow’s Checkatrade Trophy trip to Swindon Town.

The rules of the competition state that each team must include at least four outfield players who were in the starting XI in the previous match or will be in the following match.

And Flynn says there will be changes after a gruelling win at Oldham where his side had to battle hard to prevent the hosts claiming a point.

“I don’t know about mixing it up but there’s players that need games and there’s players who are dead on their feet,” said the Exiles boss.

“It would be suicide to play them and it wouldn’t be fair to them because there’s one or two of them who are close to having an injury.

“To play them on Tuesday night would be very selfish and stupid of me, and I’m neither of them.”

South Wales Argus:

Goalkeeper Nick Townsend, defenders Mark O’Brien and Cameron Pring, midfielders Charlie Cooper and Andrew Crofts and forward Keanu Marsh-Brown (above) are likely to get a chance to impress.

“I need to get them up to speed, I need to get a bit of confidence into a few of them because when you’re doing well everybody wants to be a part of it,” said Flynn.

“We’ve got a few players chomping at the bit and they should go in and make sure they do well to give me another problem for Saturday.”

Flynn faced a big problem in attack at the weekend with Mark Harris on international duty with Wales under-21s and Antoine Semenyo ruled out after suffering concussion.

And he revealed after the match that Jamille Matt and Padraig Amond, who played 74 minutes and 90 minutes respectively, were both carrying injuries.

“I’m not one to make excuses and this is not an excuse because we won but the two centre-forwards I had we didn’t know they were going to play until 12.45pm,” he said.

“They’ve both been struggling all week. The other two strikers are out so we would have had literally no strikers. What I would have done then I don’t know.

“We had two players who shouldn’t have been out there ideally. If the other two were available I would have played them.

“Padraig Amond has put in the most unselfish performance I’ve seen from a striker in my career.

“Keanu hasn’t had game-time. He needs minutes to get his confidence up and his fitness up.

“I might have had to put the Great Escape hero Mark O’Brien up there but it would have been very messy then.

“Antoine is back for Tuesday and Mark will be alright for Saturday so at least we’ve got two coming back.”