Grimsby boss Paul Hurst admitted he is already counting down the points to the League Two safety mark after two late Harry Clifton goals snatched the Mariners a 2-1 victory at Walsall.

After Luke Waterfall’s stoppage-time strike at Rochdale a fortnight ago, Hurst’s men again left it late to record a second away win on the spin as Clifton netted twice in the final 15 minutes.

Walsall had led for much of the game through Danny Johnson’s early opener but paid the price for missed chances as the Mariners continued their pleasing start to life back in the Football League, with eight points from five games.

“Points are precious,” Hurst said. “We’re new to the league and early stages you want to try and get as many points on the board as possible, you can maybe get a bit of momentum, a bit of a cushion.

“You don’t want to be chasing right from the off and with the game getting called off against Carlisle we were a game behind as well.

“I’m delighted in the end but I’m not stood here thinking we’ve played brilliantly today. But having character is a good trait that will get you so many points and perhaps has done already.

“We didn’t start well, I don’t know where our heads were and a few of the players in particular were off it, and we got punished very early.

“Then quite quickly I felt like we could see a route back into the game. For large parts of it, I felt like we were the team on top but we got towards that final third and the quality was poor.”

Johnson’s sixth goal in six league games since joining from Mansfield put Walsall ahead but Tom Knowles missed two one-on-one opportunities to make the points safe.

“Tom’s disappointed but what you do then as a team is you win the game 1-0, you help them out,” said Saddlers boss Michael Flynn.

“The first goal we gave away, from our point of view, was a disgrace – letting people run across you, slow recovery runs – and it’s a shame because they did work hard today.

“That’s the second game now, Stevenage and today, where we should have been out of sight and when you don’t punish teams, you can sense it.

“If we take our chances today the game’s done – but again we let teams off the hook, at both ends.

“I’d be more concerned if we were getting completely outplayed and not creating anything, there’s always that. I’m not going to over-react as we are ninth in the table after six games.

“It’s not a complete disaster but we could easily be on 15 points which is almost double what we’re on (eight).”