By
Luke Hemmings
BBC Sport Wales
- Published6 minutes ago
For goalkeeper Jordan Wright, Newport County's improvement this season is down to the mentality that boss Hayden Mullins has instilled at Rodney Parade.
Last season, the Exiles often struggled to recover from setbacks. Conceding first frequently led to heads dropping and games slipping away.
Under Mullins, however, resilience has become one of Newport's biggest strengths.
County have made a habit of fast starts, taking points from seven of the nine matches in which they have opened the scoring.
Even when things have gone against them, they have shown a greater ability to respond. Despite conceding inside the opening five minutes in their last three league games, Newport have fought back to earn draws in two of them.
Their nine-match unbeaten league run - which ended at Cheltenham last weekend - was the club's longest since the middle of the 2023-24 campaign.
With only seven points separating the play-off places from the relegation zone in a congested League Two table, fortunes can change quickly.
A couple of poor results could drag Newport back towards familiar territory. Yet the belief within the squad is clearly different from this stage 12 months ago.
"Obviously, the goal in every football club is to finish as high as we can," said Wright.
"Get in the play-offs, that's what everyone wants to do, and we believe we can do it and that's what we're striving to do."
Friday night's visit of Chesterfield to south Wales (19:45 GMT) offers another opportunity for Newport to extend an unbeaten home record.
"What we show at Rodney is high energy, high press, get after teams and score goals, so let's do that again," added the 27-year-old goalkeeper.
"If you can keep an unbeaten run going at home throughout the season, it is such a solid platform to build on and hopefully we can do that."
