Barrow assistant boss Sam Hird praised his side’s character after coming from behind to beat Newport 2-1.

Scott Bennett put the visitors ahead in the first-half before Scott Quigley’s equaliser.

And Jamies Devitt haunted his old employers with his first goal for the battling Bluebirds before Mickey Demetriou was sent off for the visitors.

It was the first time the Cumbrian side have come from behind to win a game this season.

After a fifth win in seven opened up a six-point gap over their relegation rivals, Hird said: “It just showed great character from the lads.

“I’m not sure we’ve come back from behind too much this season. That just shows the togetherness of the players and the staff.

“The lads are the ones on the pitch, they’re the ones who have to do it and they’ve produced the goods today.

“They drove on, they demanded standards from each other. I think it was deserved. It was well deserved at the end.

“I thought in the end we could have scored even more goals second half.

“Off the back of the last two results, although I didn’t think we played that well at Stevenage we deserved a point.

“We didn’t get in their faces enough. We conceded a sloppy goal, a real sloppy goal which was disappointing.

“I thought we reacted brilliantly. I thought we grew into the first half. Second half we were the better side, we got in their faces and pressed them.

“We played half-decent football at times and had some good chances.”

County’s promotion hopes have been in free-fall after three defeats on the spin.

Michael Flynn’s side are seven points off the top three but are in the play-off spots by a point.

“It’s a tough place to come and we found that out today,” admitted Flynn.

“It’s always disappointing when you lose a game so late on. We went ahead and were controlling the game, but they improved in the second half.

“We came here to win the game but it wasn’t to be. But I’m really looking forward to the next five or six weeks because we’ve got a fantastic opportunity.

“We’re in a good position and playing teams around us, so we’ve got to go on a winning streak sooner rather than later.”