Mansfield boss Nigel Clough will look to strengthen his options in both boxes over the summer after watching his team tough out their 19th draw of the Sky Bet League Two season.

The Stags, who have also shared the spoils six times during their current eight-game winless run, were the better side for large parts of their 1-1 draw with promotion-chasing Newport.

Prior to Joss Labadie’s opening goal for the visitors, home pair Tyrese Sinclair and Stephen Quinn had both hit uprights.

But it took an 84th-minute equaliser from Sinclair – his first senior goal – to secure a deserved point.

Clough said: “We’ve still got a job to finish this season because we’re not safe yet, but next season I will be expecting to turn these draws into wins.

“For large patches of the game, we more than matched them and I don’t know how both chances that hit the inside of the posts didn’t go in or fall to somebody else. But we’ve shown we’re not that far away from the division’s top sides and we can get closer with good recruitment over the summer.

“We’ve just got to cut the silly mistakes out because, between the penalty areas, we’ve shown we can be as good as anybody and we were still trying to win the game at the end.”

On Sinclair – the son of former Chelsea and Leicester defender Frank – Clough added: “He’s shown glimpses of his potential when he’s come on for us and he’s started the last two games and done well. He could have had a goal at Exeter on Monday but, hopefully, he will be full of confidence now after getting off the mark.”

Newport boss Michael Flynn lamented his team’s reluctance to have more shots on goal and, despite also being disappointed with the nature of Mansfield’s equaliser, was happy on reflection with only the club’s second point from a possible 27 during their last nine trips to Field Mill.

He said: “We were a bit tentative at times and need to pull the trigger a bit more. If you don’t buy a ticket, you’ll never win the lottery and, if you hit one, anything can happen, it can go in the stand, in the top corner or the keeper can make a mistake.

“But after taking the lead, the goal we gave away was poor. We did not stop the cross, then there was a poor clearance and nobody tried to block the shot.

“But we’ve come some way if we’re disappointed with a draw at Mansfield because their squad is littered with good League Two players and it might prove to be the most important point of the season. We’ve only got two away trips left now and five home games so we need to do well at home.”