Mansfield boss Nigel Clough said better was still to come from his side as they made it two wins out of two with a 2-1 home victory over Newport.

George Maris and Ollie Clarke sealed the points as the Stages won at home.

Clough said: “The best thing is I don’t think we are playing as well as we can but we are finding a way to win which is a very good sign.

“We have not got 100 per cent into our stride yet and we’ve got six points in the bag.

“We are seeing little patches of play, a few glimpses of what we can do here and there. We just need to do them more often.

“I wish it hadn’t been so close again after winning in the last minute last week.

“We were not exactly hanging on in the last minutes but they were putting pressure on as you would expect.”

Maris won the ball and curled home a low 20-yard shot that Newport keeper Joe Day should have stopped after seven minutes.

But two minutes later both James Perch and Farrend Rawson let a long ball bounce over them and Robbie Willmott nipped in to level.

“It was a very, very poor goal to concede. We have to stop those mistakes,” said Clough.

“It was down to the two centre-halves. The ball has gone straight down the middle from a goal kick and we’ve not made contact with it. That can’t happen.

“Although the keeper should probably have stopped our first goal I thought the way George Maris won the ball back and hit the target with a shot deserved a goal.”

But after 43 minutes Danny Johnson set up Clarke for a powerful finish from 15 yards.

“It lifted the net up at the back, he hit it with such ferocity,” said Clough.

“Ollie had a couple of other chances to shoot in the second half and turned them down which surprised us when you’ve scored that sort of goal.”

The Stags then survived second-half pressure to keep hold of what they had.

“I thought we played quite well against a strong Mansfield team,” said Newport manager Michael Flynn.

“Ultimately our poor defending on the two goals gave them the points as I thought we were the better team.

“We started going a bit long in the last 15 minutes which wasn’t the point of my substitutions. I wanted them to build and get more crosses in the box.

“Scott Bennett was absolutely superb today. We had a few injuries so we had to change things around so that has given me a lot of confidence with the way we played. People have come in and done extremely well.

“It’s only the second game of the season so I am not getting carried away with it. It’s been a long week, but the boys have given me their all.”