NEWPORT County AFC manager Michael Flynn insists there were “a lot of positives” after last night’s Checkatrade Trophy penalty shootout defeat at Cheltenham Town.

County led 1-0 at Whaddon Road through Padraig Amond’s 10th goal of the season in the first half.

But Alex Addai levelled for the hosts midway through the second half and it finished 1-1 after 90 minutes.

With no extra-time in the Trophy, the match went straight to penalties.

And, after Amond, Dan Butler, Joss Labadie, Josh Sheehan, Antoine Semenyo and Mickey Demetriou all scored from the spot, Mark Harris saw his effort saved by Robins goalkeeper Scott Flinders.

Cheltenham prevailed 7-6 to book a place in the last-16 and bank £20,000 in prize money.

But Flynn was pleased with the way his team performed and philosophical about the defeat.

“It’s a lottery when it’s a penalty shootout and somebody’s got to lose,” said the Exiles boss.

“I think it was a very high-quality penalty session from both teams but we’re out.

“With penalties somebody has got to miss and unfortunately it was Mark but he had the guts to take one so fair play to him.”

Flynn felt Harris and Semenyo excelled up front, with Amond dropping back into midfield.

“I think we should have won it in 90 minutes, but they could have won it at the end as well,” he said.

“I thought it was a really good game. I really enjoyed it. We played some good football and the two up front absolutely murdered them in the first half. They didn’t know how to handle them. They ran them ragged.

“Young Jay Foulston did quite well, Nick [Townsend] did alright. There were good performances all around and there are a lot of positives.

“The goal we gave away was terrible but there were loads of plus points.

“There were a lot of good performances and we had a couple of players back from injury as well.

“Tyler [Forbes] came back and got 65 minutes and obviously Joss [Labadie] had a good 20 minutes. It was great to see them back.”